(Facsimile Page of Manuscript from BESIDE THE BONNIE BRIAR BUSH)
11
Book I — CHAPTER I — BY THE CAMP-FIRE — CHAPTER II — THE BATTLE OF SINEFFE — CHAPTER III — A DECISIVE BLOW — CHAPTER IV — A CHANGE OF MASTERS
That afternoon a strange thing had happened
to the camp of the Prince of Orange,
which was pitched near Nivelle in Brabant,
for the Prince was then challenging Condé,
who stuck behind his trenches at Charleroi and
would not come out to fight. A dusty-colored
cloud came racing along the sky so swiftly––yet
there was no wind to be felt––that
it was above the camp almost as soon as it
was seen. When the fringes of the cloud encompassed
the place, there burst forth as from
its belly a whirlwind and wrought sudden
devastation in a fashion none had ever seen
before or could afterwards forget. With
one long and fierce gust it tore up trees
by the roots, unroofed the barns where the
Prince’s headquarters were, sucked up tents
into the air, and carried soldiers’ caps in
flocks, as if they were flocks of rooks. This
12
commotion went on for half an hour, then
ceased as instantly as it began; there was
calm again and the evening ended in peace,
while the cloud of fury went on its way into
the west, and afterwards we heard that a very
grand and strong church at Utrecht had suffered
greatly. As the camp was in vast disorder,
both officers and men bivouacked in the
open that night, and as it was inclined to chill
in those autumn evenings, fires had been lit
not only for the cooking of food, but for the
comfort of their heat. Round one fire a group
of English gentlemen had gathered, who had
joined the Prince’s forces, partly because, like
other men of their breed, they had an insatiable
love of fighting, and partly to push their
fortunes, for Englishmen in those days, and
still more Scotsmen were willing to serve on
any side where the pay and the risks together
were certain, and under any commander who
was a man of his head and hands. Europe
swarmed with soldiers of fortune from Great
Britain, hard bitten and fearless men, some
of whom fell far from home, and were buried
in unknown graves, others of whom returned
to take their share in any fighting that turned
up in their own country. So it came to pass
that many of our Islanders had fought impartially
with equal courage and interest for
13
the French and against them, like those two
Scots who met for the first time at the camp-fire
that night, and whose fortunes were to
the end of the chapter to be so curiously intertwined.
There was Collier, who afterwards
became My Lord Patmore; Rooke, who rose
to be a major-general in the English army;
Hales, for many years Governor of Chelsea
Hospital; Venner, the son of one of Cromwell’s
soldiers, who had strange notions about
a fifth monarchy which was to be held by our
Lord himself, but who was a good fighting
man; and some others who came to nothing
and left no mark. Two young Scots gentlemen
were among the Englishmen, who were
to have a share in making history in their
own country, and both to die as generals upon
the battle-field, the death they chiefly loved.
Both men were to suffer more than falls to
the ordinary lot, and the life of one, some
part of whose story is here to be told, was
nothing else but tragedy. For the gods had
bestowed upon him quick gifts of mind and
matchless beauty of face, and yet he was to
be hated by his nation, till his name has become
a byword, and to be betrayed by his
own friends who were cowards or self-seekers,
and to find even love, like a sword, pierce
his heart.
14
Scotland contains within it two races, and
partly because their blood is different and
partly because the one race has lived in the
open and fertile Lowlands, and the other in
the wild and shadowy Highlands, the Celt
of the North and the Scot of the south are
well-nigh as distant from each other as the
east from the west. But among the Celts
there were two kinds in that time, and even
unto this day the distinction can be found
by those who look for it. There was the
eager and fiery Celt who was guided by his
passions rather than by prudence, who struck
first and reasoned afterwards, who was the
victim of varying moods and the child of
hopeless causes. He was usually a Catholic
in faith, so far as he had any religion, and
devoted to the Stuart dynasty, so far as he
had any policy apart from his chief. There
was also another sort of Celt, who was quiet
and self-contained, determined and persevering.
Men of this type were usually Protestant
in their faith, and when the day of
choice came they threw in their lot with Hanover
against Stuart. Hugh MacKay was the
younger son of an ancient Highland house of
large possessions and much influence in the
distant North of Scotland; his people were
suspicious of the Stuarts because the kings of
15
that ill-fated line were intoxicated with the
idea of divine right, and were ever clutching
at absolute power; nor had the MacKays any
overwhelming and reverential love for bishops,
because they considered them to be the
instruments of royal tyranny and the oppressors
of the kirk. MacKay has found a place
between Collier and Venner, and as he sits
leaning back against a saddle and to all appearance
half asleep, the firelight falls on his
broad, powerful, but rather awkward figure,
and on a strong, determined face, which in its
severity is well set off by his close-cut sandy
hair. Although one would judge him to be
dozing, or at least absorbed in his own
thoughts, if anything is said which arrests
him, he will cast a quick look on the speaker,
and then one marks that his eyes are steely
gray, cold and penetrating, but also brave and
honest. By and by he rouses himself, and taking
a book out of an inner pocket, and leaning
sideways towards the fire, he begins to
read, and secludes himself from the camp
talk. Venner notices that it is a Bible, and
opens his mouth to ask him whether he can
give him the latest news about the fifth monarchy
which made a windmill in his poor father’s
head, but, catching sight of MacKay’s
grim profile, thinks better and only shrugs
16
his shoulders. For MacKay was not a man
whose face or manner invited jesting.
Upon the other side of the fire, so that the
two men could only catch occasional and uncertain
glimpses of each other through the
smoke, as was to be their lot in after days,
lay the other Scot in careless grace, supporting
his head upon his hand, quite at his ease
and in good fellowship with all his comrades.
If MacKay marked a contrast to the characteristic
Celt of hot blood and wayward impulses,
by his reserve and self-control, John
Graham was quite unlike the average Lowlander
by the spirit of feudal prejudice and
romantic sentiment, of uncalculating devotion
and loyalty to dead ideals, which burned
within his heart, and were to drive him headlong
on his troubled and disastrous career.
A kinsman of the great Montrose and born
of a line which traced its origin to Scottish
kings, the child of a line of fighting cavaliers,
he loathed Presbyterians, their faith and
their habits together, counting them fanatics
by inherent disposition and traitors whenever
opportunity offered. He was devoted to
the Episcopal Church of Scotland, and regarded
a bishop with reverence for the sake
of his office, and he was ready to die, as the
Marquis of Montrose had done before him,
17
for the Stuart line and their rightful place.
One can see as he stretches himself, raising
his arms above his head with a taking gesture,
that he is not more than middle size and
slightly built, though lithe and sinewy as a
young tiger, but what catches one’s eye is the
face, which is lit up by a sudden flash of firelight.
It is that of a woman rather than a
man, and a beautiful woman to boot, and this
girl face he was to keep through all the days of
strife and pain, and also fierce deeds, till they
carried him dead from Killiecrankie field. It
was a full, rich face, with fine complexion
somewhat browned by campaign life, with
large, expressive eyes of hazel hue, whose expression
could change with rapidity from
love to hate, which could be very gentle in a
woman’s wooing, or very hard when dealing
with a Covenanting rebel, but which in repose
were apt to be sad and hopeless. The
lips are rich and flexible, the nose strong and
straight, the eyebrows high and well arched,
and the mouth, with the short upper lip, is
both tender and strong. His abundant and
rich brown hair he wears in long curls falling
over his shoulders, as did the cavaliers, and
he is dressed with great care in the height of
military fashion, evidently a gallant and debonair
gentleman. He has just ceased from
18
badinage with Rooke, in which that honest
soldier’s somewhat homely army jokes have
been worsted by the graceful play of Graham’s
wit, who was ever gay, but never
coarse, who was no ascetic, and was ever willing
to drink the king’s health, but, as his
worst enemies used grudgingly to admit, cared
neither for wine nor women. Silence falls
for a little on the company. Claverhouse
looking into the fire and seeing things of long
ago and far away, hums a Royalist ballad to
the honor of King Charles, and the confounding
of crop-eared Puritans. Among the company
was that honest gentleman, Captain
George Carlton, who was afterwards to tell
many entertaining anecdotes of the War in
Spain under that brilliant commander Lord
Peterborough. And as Carlton, who was ever
in thirst for adventures, had been serving with
the fleet, and had only left it because he
thought there might be more doing now in
other quarters, Venner demanded whether
he had seen anything whose telling would
make the time pass more gayly by the fire, for
as that liberated Puritan said: “My good
comrade on the right is engaged at his devotions,
and I also would be reading a Bible if
I had one, but my worthy father studied the
Good Book so much that men judged it had
19
driven him crazy, and I having few wits to
lose have been afraid to open it ever since.
As for Mr. Graham, if I catch the air he is
singing, it is a song of the malignants against
which as a Psalm-singing Puritan I lift my
testimony. So a toothsome story of the sea,
if it please you, Mr. Carlton.”
“Apart from the fighting, gentlemen,” began
Carlton, who was a man of careful speech
and stiff mind, “for I judge you do not
hanker after battle-tales, seeing we shall have
our stomach full ere many days be past, if
the Prince can entice Condé into the open,
there were not many things worth telling.
But this was a remarkable occurrence, the
like of which I will dare say none of you have
seen, though I know there are men here who
have been in battle once and again. Upon the
‘Catherine’ there was a gentleman volunteer,
a man of family and fine estate, by the name
of Hodge Vaughan. Early in the fight, when
the Earl of Sandwich was our admiral and
Van Ghent commanded the Dutch, Vaughan
received a considerable wound, and was carried
down into the hold. Well, it happened
that they had some hogs aboard and, the
worse for poor Hodge Vaughan, the sailor
who had charge of them, like any other proper
Englishman, was fonder of fighting than of
20
feeding pigs, and so left them to forage for
themselves. As they could get nothing else,
and liked a change in their victuals when it
came within their reach, they made their meal
off Vaughan, and when the fight was over
there was nothing left of that poor gentleman
except his skull, which was monstrous thick
and bade defiance to the hogs. This is not a
common happening,” continued Carlton with
much composure, “and I thank my Maker I
was not carried into that hold to be a hog’s
dinner. Yet I give you my word of honor
that the tale is true.”
“Lord! it was a cruel ending for a gallant
gentleman,” said Collier, “and it makes gruesome
telling. Have you anything else sweeter
for the mouth, for there be enough of hogs on
the land as well as on sea, and some of them go
round the field, where men are lying helpless,
on two legs and not on four, from whom
heaven defend us.”
“Since you ask for more,” replied Carlton,
“a thing took place about which there was
much talk, and on it I should like to have
your judgment. Upon the same ship with
myself, there was a gentleman volunteer, and
he came with the name of a skilful swordsman.
He had been in many duels and thought
no more of standing face to face with another
21
man, and he cared not who he was, than taking
his breakfast. You would have said that
he of all men would have been the coolest on
the deck and would have given no heed to
danger. Yet the moment the bullets whizzed
he ran into the hold, and for all his land
mettle he was a coward on the sea. When
everyone laughed at him and he was becoming
a thing of scorn, he asked to be tied to the
mainmast, so that he might not be able to
escape. So it comes into my mind,” concluded
Carlton, “to ask this question of you
gallant gentlemen, Is courage what Sir Walter
Raleigh calls it, if I mind me rightly, the
art of the philosophy of quarrel, or must it
not be the issue of principle and rest upon a
steady basis of religion? I should like to ask
those artists in murder, meaning no offence
to any gentleman present who may have been
out in a duel, to tell me this, why one who
has run so many risks at his sword’s point
should be turned into a coward at the whizz
of a cannon ball?”
“There is not much puzzle in it as it seems
to me,” answered Rooke; “every man that
is worth calling such has so much courage,
see you, but there are different kinds. As
Mr. Carlton well called it, there is land mettle,
and that good swordsman was not afraid
22
when his feet were on the solid ground, then
there is sea mettle, and faith he had not much
of that, a trifle too little, I grant you, for a
gentleman. So it is in measure with us all
I never saw the horse I would not mount or
the wall within reason I would not take, but
I cannot put my foot in a little boat and feel
it rising on the sea without a tremble at the
heart. That is how I read the riddle.”
“What I hold,” burst in Collier, “is that
everything depends on a man’s blood. If it
be pure and he has come of a good stock, he
cannot play the coward any more than a lion
can stalk like a fox. Land or sea, whatever
tremble be at the heart he faces his danger
as a gentleman should, though there be certain
kinds of danger, as has been said, which
are worse for some men than others. But I
take it your gentleman volunteer, though he
might be a good player with the sword, was,
if you knew it, a mongrel.”
“If you mean by mongrel humbly born,”
broke in Venner, “saving your presence, you
are talking nonsense, and I will prove it to
you from days that are not long passed.
When it came to fighting in the days of our
fathers, I say not that the lads who followed
Rupert were not gallant gentlemen and hardy
blades, but unless my poor memory has been
23
carried off by that infernal whirlwind, I think
Old Noll’s Ironsides held their own pretty
well. And who were they but blacksmiths
and farmer men, from Essex and the Eastern
counties. There does not seem to me much
difference between the man from the castle
and the man behind the plough when their
blood is up and they have a sword in their
hands.”
“I am under obligation to you all for discussing
my humble question, but I see that
we have two Scots gentlemen with us, and I
would crave their opinion. For all men know
that the Scots soldier has gone everywhere
sword in hand, and whether he was in the
body-guard of the King of France, or doing
his duty for the Lion of the North, has never
turned his back to the foe. And I am the
more moved to ask an answer for the settlement
of my mind, because as I have ever
understood, the Scots more than our people
are accustomed to go into the reason of things,
and to argue about principles. It is not always
that the strong sword-arm goes with a
clear head, and I am waiting to hear what
two gallant Scots soldiers will say.” And
the Englishman paid his tribute of courtesy
first across the fire to Claverhouse, who responded
gracefully with a pleasant smile that
24
showed his white, even teeth beneath his slight
mustache, and then to MacKay, who leaned
forward and bowed stiffly.
“We are vastly indebted to Mr. Carlton for
his good opinion of our nation,” said Claverhouse,
after a slight pause to see whether
MacKay would not answer, and in gentle,
almost caressing tones, “but I fear me his
charity flatters us. Certainly no man can
deny that Scotland is ever ringing with debate.
But much of it had better been left unsaid,
and most of it is carried on by ignorant
brawlers, who should be left ploughing fields
and herding sheep instead of meddling with
matters too high for them. At least such is
my humble mind, but I am only a gentleman
private of the Prince’s guard, and there is
opposite me a commissioned officer of his
army. It is becoming that Captain Hugh
MacKay, who many will say has a better right
to speak for Scotland than a member of my
house, and who has just been getting counsel
from the highest, as I take it, should give his
judgment on this curious point of bravery or
cowardice.”
Although Graham’s manner was perfectly
civil and his accents almost silken, Venner
glanced keenly from one Scot to the other,
and everyone felt that the atmosphere had
25
grown more intense, and that there was latent
antipathy between the two men. And even
Rooke, a blunt and matter-of-fact Englishman,
who having said his say, had been smoking
diligently, turned round to listen to MacKay,
who had never said a word through all
the talk of the evening.
“Mr. Carlton and gentlemen volunteers,”
MacKay began, with grave formality, “I had
not intended to break in upon your conversation,
which I found very instructive, but as
Claverhouse” (and it was characteristic of
his nation that MacKay should call Graham
by the name of his estate) “has asked me
straightly to speak, I would first apologize
for my presence in this company. I do not
belong, as ye know, to the King’s guard, and
it is true that I have a captain’s commission.
As the tempest of to-day had thrown all
things into confusion, and it happened that I
had nowhere to sit, Mr. Venner was so kind
as to ask me to take my place by this fire for
the night, and I am pleased to find myself
among so many goodly young gentlemen. I
make no doubt,” he added, “that everyone
will so acquit himself as very soon to receive
his commission.”
“The sooner the better,” said Hales, “and
as I have a flask of decent Burgundy here, I
26
will pass it round that we may drink to our
luck from a loving cup.” And everyone took
his draught except MacKay, who only held
the cup to his lips and inclined his head, being
a severe and temperate man in everything.
“Concerning the duel and the action of that
gentleman,” continued MacKay, “my mind
may not be that of the present honorable company.
It has ever seemed to me that a man
has no right to risk his own life or take that
of his neighbor save in the cause of just war,
when he doubtless is absolved. For two sinful
mortals to settle their poor quarrels by
striking each other dead is nothing else than
black murder. There is no difficulty to my
judgment in understanding the character of
that duellist. When he knew that through
skill in fencing he could kill the other man
and escape himself, he was always ready to
fight; when he found that danger had shifted
to his own side, he was quick to flee. My verdict
on him,” and MacKay’s voice was vibrant,
“is that he was nothing other than a
butcher and a coward.”
“As the Lord liveth,” cried Venner, “I
hear my sainted father laying down the law,
and I do Captain MacKay filial reverence.
May I inquire whether Scotland is raising
many such noble Puritans, for they are
27
quickly dying out in England. Such savory
and godly conversation have I not heard for
years, and it warms my heart.”
“The sooner the knaves die out in England
the better,” cried Collier; “but I mean no
offence to Venner, who is no more a Puritan
than I am, though he has learned their talk,
and none at all to Captain MacKay, whom I
salute, and of whose good services when he
was fighting on the other side we have all
heard. Nor can I, indeed, believe that he is
a Roundhead, for I was always given to understand
that Highland gentlemen were always
Cavaliers, and high-spirited soldiers.”
“Ye be wrong then, good comrades,” broke
in Claverhouse, “for all Highlanders be not
of the same way of thinking, though I grant
you most of them are what ye judge. But
have you never heard of the godly Marquis
of Argyle, who took such care of himself on
the field of battle, but afterwards happened
to lose his head through a little accident, and
his swarm of Campbells, besides some other
clans that I will not mention? My kinsman
of immortal memory, whom I maintain to be
the finest gentleman and most skilful general
Scotland has yet reared, could have told you
that there were Highland Roundheads; he
knew them, and they knew him, and I hope I
28
need not be telling this company what happened
when they met.” As Graham spoke,
it may have been the firelight on MacKay’s
face, but it seemed to flush and his expression
to harden. However, he said no word and
made no sign, and Claverhouse, whose voice
was as smooth as ever, but whose eyes were
flashing fire, continued: “If there should be
trouble soon in Scotland, and my advice from
home tells me that the fanatics in the West
will soon be coming to a head and taking to
the field, we shall know that some of the clans
are loyal and some of them are not. And for
my own part, I care not how soon we come to
our duel in Scotland. Please God, I would
dearly love to have the settling of the matter.
With a few thousand Camerons, Macphersons,
MacDonalds, and such like, I will guarantee
that I could teach the Psalm-singing
canters a lesson they would never forget. But
I crave pardon for touching on our national
differences, when we had better be employed
in cracking another flask of that good Burgundy.”
And Graham, as if ashamed of his
heat, stretched his arms above his head.
“May God in His mercy avert so great a
calamity,” said MacKay after a pause.
“When brother turns against brother in the
same nation it is the cruellest of all wars. But
29
the rulers of Scotland may make themselves
sure that if they drive God-fearing people
mad, they will rise against their oppressors.
Mr. Graham, however, has wisdom on his side––I
wish it had come a minute sooner––when
he said there was no place for our Scots quarrels
in the Prince’s army. Wherefore I say
no more on that matter, but I pray we all may
have the desire of a soldier’s heart, a righteous
cause, a fair battle, and a crowning victory,
and that we all in the hour of peril may
do our part as Christian gentlemen.”
“Amen to that, Captain MacKay of
Scourie, three times Amen!” cried Graham.
“I drink it in this wine, and pledge you all
to brave deeds when a chance comes our way.
The sooner the better and the gladder I shall
be, for our race have never been more content
than when the swords were clashing. I
wish to heaven we were serving under a more
high-spirited commander; I deny not his
courage, else I would not be among his guard,
nor his skill, but I confess that I do not love
a man whose blood runs so slow, and whose
words drop like icicles. But these be hasty
words, and should not be spoken except
among honorable comrades when the wine is
going round by the camp-fire. And here is
Jock Grimond who, because he taught me to
30
catch a trout and shoot the muir-fowl when I
was a little lad, thinks he ought to rule me all
my days, and has been telling me for the last
ten minutes that he has prepared some kind
of bed with the remains of my tent. So good
night and sound sleep, gentlemen, and may
to-morrow bring the day for which we pray.”
31
It was early in the morning on the first
day of August, and darkness was still heavy
upon the camp, when Grimond stooped over
his master and had to shake him vigorously
before Claverhouse woke.
“It’s time you were up, Maister John; the
Prince’s guards are gatherin’, and sune will
be fallin’ in; that’s their trumpets soundin’.
Ye will need a bite before ye start, and here’s
a small breakfast, pairt of which I saved oot
o’ that stramash yesterday––sall! the blast
threatened to leave neither meat nor lodgin’,
and pairt I happened to light upon this
mornin’ when I was takin’ a bit walk through
the camp with my lantern.”
Grimond spread out a fairly generous
breakfast of half a fowl, a piece of ham, some
excellent cheese, with good white bread and a
bottle of wine, and held the lantern that his
master might eat with some comfort, if it had
to be with more haste.
32
“Do you ken, Jock, where I was when you
wakened me, and flashed the light upon my
face? Away in bonnie Glen Ogilvie, where
everything is at its best to-day. I dreamed
that I was off to Sidlaw Hill, to see what was
doing with the muir-fowl, and I felt the good
Scots air blowing upon my face. This is a
black wakening, Jock, but I’ve slept worse,
and you have done well for breakfast. Ye
never came honestly by it, man. Have ye
been raiding?”
“Providence guided me, Maister John, and
I micht have given a little assistance mysel’.
As I was crossing thro’ a corner of the Dutch
camp, I caught a glimpse of this roast
chuckie, with some other bits o’ things, and
it cam into my mind that that was somebody’s
breakfast. Whether he had taken all he
wanted or whether he was going to be too late
was-na my business, but the Lord delivered
that fowl into my hands, and I considered it
a temptin’ o’ Providence no to tak it, to say
nothin’ o’ the white bread. The wine and the
ham I savit frae yesterday.”
“You auld thief, I might have guessed
where you picked up the breakfast. I only
hope ’twas a heavy-built Dutchman who could
starve for a week without suffering, and not a
lean, hungry Scot who needed some breakfast
33
to put strength in him for a day’s fighting, if
God be good enough to send it. Isn’t it a regiment
of the Scots brigade which is lying next
to us, Jock?”
“It is,” replied that worthy servitor, “and
I was hopin’ that it was Captain MacKay’s
rations which were given into my hands, so
to say, by the higher power. I was standing
behind you, Maister John, last nicht when
you and him was argling-bargling, and if ever
I saw a cunning twa-faced Covenanter, it’s
that man. They say he has got a good word
with the Prince through his Dutch wife, and
where ye give that kind of man an inch, he
will take an ell. It’s no for me to give advice,
me bein’ in my place and you in yours.
But I promised your honorable mither that I
wouldna see you come to mischief if I could
help it, and I am sair mistaken if yon man
will no be a mercilous and persistent enemy.
May the Almichty forbid it, but if MacKay
of Scourie can hinder it there will be little advancement
for Graham of Claverhouse in this
army.”
“You are a dour and suspicious devil,
Jock, and you’ve always been the same ever
since I remember you. Captain MacKay is
a whig and a Presbyterian, but he is a good
soldier, and I wish I had been more civil to
34
him last night. We are here to fight for the
Prince of Orange and to beat the French, and
let the best man win; it will be time enough
to quarrel when we get back to Scotland.
Kindly Scots should bury their differences,
and stand shoulder to shoulder in a foreign
land.”
“That is bonnie talk, laird, but dinna forget
there’s been twa kinds of Scot in the land
since the Reformation, and there will be twa
to the end of the chapter, and they’ll never
agree till the day of judgment, and then
they’ll be on opposite sides. There was Queen
Mary and there was John Knox, there was
that false-hearted loon Argyle, that ye gave
a grand nip at the fire last nicht, and there
was the head o’ your hoose, the gallant Marquis––peace
to his soul. Now there’s the Carnegies
and the Gordons and the rest o’ the
royal families in the Northeast, and the sour-blooded
Covenanters down in the West, and
it’s no in the nature o’ things that they should
agree any more than oil and water. As for
me, the very face of a Presbyterian whig
makes me sick. But there’s the trumpet
again,” and Grimond helped his master to
put on his arms.
“I’ve been awfu favored this mornin’,
Maister John, for what div ye think? I’ve
35
secured nae less than a baggage waggon for
oorsels. The driver was stravagin’ aboot in
the dark and didna know where he was going,
so I asked him if he wasna coming for the
baggage of the English gentlemen, to say
naething of a Scots gentleman. When he was
trying to understand me, and I was trying to
put some sense into him, up comes Mr. Carlton,
and I explained the situation to him. He
told the driver in his own language that I
would guide him to the spot, and me and the
other men are packing the whole of the gentlemen’s
luggage and ane or twa comforts in
the shape of meat and bedding which the fools
round about us didna seem to notice, or were
going to leave. That waggon, Mr. John, is a
crownin’ mercy, and I’m to sit beside the
driver, and it will no be my blame if there’s
no a tent and a supper wherever Providence
sends us this nicht.” And Jock went off in
great feather to look after his acquisition,
while his master joined his comrades of the
Prince’s guard.
As the day rapidly breaks, they find themselves
passing from the level into a broken
country. The ground is rising, and in the distance
they can see defiles through which the
army must make its way. The vanguard, as
they learn from one of the Prince’s aides-de-camp,
36
is composed of the Imperial corps commanded
by Count Souches, and must by this
time be passing through the narrows. In
front are the Dutch troops, who are under
the immediate command of the Commander-in-Chief,
the Prince of Orange. The English
volunteers being the next to the Prince’s regiment
of Guards, followed close upon the main
body of the army, and behind them trailed the
long, cumbrous baggage train. The rear-guard,
together with some details of various
kinds and nations, consisted of the Spanish
division, which was commanded by Prince
Vaudemont. As they came to higher ground
Claverhouse began to see the lie of the country,
and to express his fears to Carlton.
“I don’t know how you judge things,” said
Claverhouse, “but I would not be quite at
my ease if I were his Highness of Orange, in
command of the army, and with more than
one nation’s interest at stake, instead of a
poor devil of a volunteer, with little pay, less
reputation, and no responsibility. If we were
marching across a plain and could see twenty
miles round, or if there were no enemy within
striking reach, well, then this were a pleasant
march from Neville to Binch, for that is
where I’m told we are going. But, faith, I
don’t like the sight of this country in which
37
we are being entangled. If Condé has any
head, and he is not a fool, he could arrange a
fine ambuscade, and catch those mighty and
vain-glorious Imperialists and that fool
Souches like rats in a trap. Or he might
make a sudden attack on the flank and cut our
army into two, as you divide a caterpillar
crawling along the ground.”
“The General knows what he is about, no
doubt,” replies Carlton with true English
phlegm; “he has made his plan, and I suppose
the cavalry have been scouting. It’s
their business who have got the command to
arrange the march and the attack, and ours to
do the fighting. It will be soon enough for us
to arrange the tactics when we get to be generals.
What say you to that, Mr. Graham?
There’s no sign of the enemy at any rate, and
Souches must be well in through the valley.”
“No,” said Graham, “there are no Frenchmen
to be seen, but they may be there behind
the hill on our right, and quick enough to
show themselves when the time comes. Oh!
I like this bit of country, for it minds me of
the Braes of Angus, and I hate a land where
all is flat and smooth. By heaven! what a
chance there is for any commander who
knows how to use a hill country. See ye here,
comrade, suppose this was Scotland, and this
38
were an army of black Whigs, making their
way to do some evil work after their heart’s
desire against their King and Church, and I
had the dealing with them. All I would ask
would be a couple of Highland clans and a
regiment of loyal gentlemen, well-mounted
and armed. I would wait concealed behind
yon wood up there near the sky-line till those
Imperialists were fairly up the glen and out
of sight and the Dutch were plodding their
way in. Then I’d launch the Highlanders,
sword in hand, down the slope of that hill,
and cut off the rear-guard, and take the baggage
at a swoop, and in half an hour the army
would be disabled and the third part of it put
out of action.”
“What about the Imperial troops and the
Dutch, my General?” said Carlton, much
interested in Claverhouse’s plan of battle.
“You can’t take an army in detachments
just as you please.”
“You can with Highlanders and cavalry,
and then having struck your blow retire as
quickly as you came. Faith, there would be
no option about the retiring with your Highlanders;
when they got hold of the baggage
they would do nothing more. After every
man had lifted as much as he could carry, he
would make for the hills and leave the other
39
troops to do as they pleased. An army of
Highlanders is quickly gathered and quickly
dispersed, and the great point of attraction is
the baggage. Condé has no Highlanders, the
worse for him and the better for us, but he
has plenty of light troops––infantry as well as
cavalry––and if he doesn’t take this chance
he ought to be discharged with disgrace. But
see there, what make you of that, Carlton?”
“What and where?” said Carlton, looking
in the direction Claverhouse pointed. “I see
the brushwood, and it may be that there are
troops behind, but my eyes cannot detect
them.”
“Watch a moment that place where the
leaves are darker and thicker, and that tree
stands out; you can catch a glitter, just an
instant, and then it disappears. What do
you say to that?”
“By the Lord!” cried Carlton, who was
standing in his stirrups and shading his eyes
with his hand, “it’s the glitter of a breastplate.
There’s one trooper at any rate in that
wood, and if there is one there may be hundreds.
What think you?”
“What I’ve been expecting for hours.
Those are the videttes of the French army,
and they have been watching us all the time
our vanguard was passing. I’ll stake a year’s
40
rental of the lands of Claverhouse that if we
could see on the other side of that hill we
would find Condé’s troops making ready for
an attack.”
“I will not say but that you are right, and
I don’t like the situation nor feel as comfortable
as I did half an hour ago. Do you think
that the general in command knows of this
danger, or has heard that the French outposts
are so near?”
“If you ask me, Mr. Carlton, I would say
that those Dutch officers don’t know that
there is a Frenchman within ten miles; they
are good at drill, and steady in battle, but
their minds are as heavy as their bodies.
Their idea of fighting is to deploy according
to a book of drill on a parade ground; you
cannot expect men who live on the flat to understand
hills. That wood,” and Claverhouse
was looking at the hill intently, “is simply
full of men and horses, and within an hour,
and perhaps less, you will see a pretty attack.
Aren’t we at their mercy?” Claverhouse
pointed forward to the crest of a little hill
over which the Dutch brigade were passing
in marching formation, and backward to the
lumbering train of baggage-wagons.
“‘Whom the gods wish to destroy they first
make mad,’ is a Latin proverb I picked up
41
at St. Andrew’s University, and one of the
few scraps of knowledge I carried away from
the good old place. They might at least have
thrown out some of our cavalry on the right
to draw fire from that wood, and enable us to
find their position. It’s not overly pleasant
to jog quietly along as if one were riding up
the Carse of Gowrie to Perth fair, when it’s
far more likely we are riding into the shambles
like a herd of fat bullocks going to Davie
Saunders, the Dundee butcher.”
“See you here, friend,” cried Carlton, “I
am not in a mind to be taken at a disadvantage
and ridden down by those Frenchmen
when we are not in formation. They have us
at a disadvantage in any case, but, by my life,
we ought at any rate to deploy to the right,
and seize that higher ground, or else they will
send us into that marshland that I see forward
there on the left. If they do, there will
be some throats cut, and it might be yours or
mine. What say you, Mr. Graham, to ride
forward and tell one of the officers in attendance
on his Highness what we have seen, and
then let them do as they please?”
“I have nothing to say against that, but I
know one man who will not go, and that is
John Graham of Claverhouse. It may be
vain pride, or it may not, but I will not
42
have the shame of telling my tale to one of
those Dutchmen as if you were speaking to a
painted monument, and then have him order
you back to your place as if you were a mutineer;
my hand would be itching for the sword-handle
before all was done, and so I’ll just be
doing. But I will be ready when the cloud
breaks from yon hill, and it’s not far off the
bursting now.” And Graham pointed out
that the glitter was repeated at several points,
as when the sun is reflected from broken
dishes on a hillside.
“You Scots are a proud race,” laughed
Carlton, “and quick to take offence. We
English have a temper, too, but we are nearer
to those Dutchmen in our nature. I’ll not see
the army ambuscaded without a warning. If
they take it we shall make a better fight, and
for the first hour it will be bad enough anyway
till the vanguard are brought back, and
if they won’t take it, why, we have done our
duty, and we will have to look after ourselves.”
And Carlton spurred his horse and
cantered forward to where the headquarters
staff were riding with the troop which was
called the Scots brigade, because it was largely
officered and to some extent manned by Scotsmen,
and in which MacKay had a captain’s
commission.
43
In some fifteen minutes Carlton rejoined
Claverhouse red and annoyed, and on the
sight of him Claverhouse laughed.
“Without offence, good comrade, I take it
you have not been thanked for your trouble
or been promised promotion. Sworn at, I
dare say, if those godly Dutchmen are allowed
to rap out an oath. At any rate you
have been told to attend to your own work
and leave our wise generals to manage theirs,
eh?”
“You are right, Graham. I wish I had
bitten off my tongue rather than reported the
matter. I got hold of an aide-de-camp, and
I pointed out what we had seen, and he spoke
to me as if I was a boy with my heart in my
mouth for fear I would be shot every minute.
For a set of pig-headed fools–––”
“Well, it would not have mattered much, for
the news, as it happened, would have come too
late. See, the attack has begun; whatever be
the issue of the battle before night, it will be
one way or another with us within an hour.”
As he spoke Claverhouse began to put himself
in order, seeing that his pistols were
ready in the holsters, his sword loose in the
scabbard, and the girths of his saddle tight.
“It will be a sharp piece of work for us,
and some good sword play before it is done.”
44
Suddenly from the wood a line of cavalry
emerged, followed by another and still another,
till at least three regiments were on the
side of the hill, and behind them it was evident
there was a large body of troops. By
this time the staff had taken alarm, and an
officer had galloped up with orders that the
English volunteers and Dutch cavalry should
deploy to the right, and orders were also sent
to the Spaniards in the rear to advance rapidly
and cover the baggage. The Dutch troops in
front who had entered the defile were arrested,
and began to march back, and an urgent message
was sent to the Imperialists to follow
the Dutch in case the French should make a
general attack. Before the Dutch troops had
returned to the open, and long before the Imperialists
could be in action, the French,
crossing the hill with immense rapidity and
covered by a screen of cavalry, attacked the
Spanish rear-guard before it was able to take
up a proper form of defence, and though the
Spaniards fought with their accustomed courage,
and no blame could be attached to the
dispositions made in haste by Vaudemont, this
division of the army was absolutely routed,
and one distinguished Spanish general, the
Marquis of Assentar, was killed when cheering
his men to the defence. The defeat of the
45
Spaniards left the baggage train unprotected,
and the French troops fell upon it with great
zest: indeed, Claverhouse that night declared
that the Highlanders themselves could not
have raided more heartily or more swiftly.
Nor did the Spaniards, when once they had
been beaten and scattered, and fighting was
no longer of any use, disdain to help themselves
to the plunder. Grimond was furious
as he saw his wagon in danger, and endeavored
to rally some odds and ends of flying
Spaniards and terrified wagon-drivers to defend
his cherished possessions. But he was
left to do so himself, and after beating off
the two first Frenchmen who came to investigate,
and being wounded in a general fight
with the next lot, he was obliged to leave the
possessions of the English volunteers to their
fate and set off to discover how it fared with
his master.
The Battle of Sineffe was to last all day,
and before evening the two armies would be
generally engaged; eighteen thousand men
were to fall on both sides, and there were to
be many hot encounters, but the sharpest took
place at the centre and early in the day. The
cavalry with the English volunteers were
thrown forward to hinder the advance of the
French cavalry who, while their infantry
46
were dealing with the Spanish corps, were
being hurled at the centre in order to cut the
army in two and confine the Dutch troops to
the defile, or if they emerged from the defiles,
to crush them before they could deploy
on the broken country.
“Where do you take it is the point of conflict?”
asked Carlton as the regiment of the
guards with which they were serving went
forward at a sharp trot across the level
ground, on which the French cavalry should
soon be appearing. “Where is his Highness
himself, for I can get no sight of the rest of
the Dutch cavalry?”
“To the left, I take it, where the fight has
already begun. Do you not hear the firing?
and I seem to catch some shouts, as if the
Dutch and the French were already meeting.
Mind you, Carlton, his Highness may have
been too confident and laid the army open to
attack, but he can tell where the heart of the
situation is, and his business will be to resist
the French onslaught till the infantry
are in position. Just as I thought, we are to
go to his aid, and in ten minutes, or my name
is not Graham, we shall have as much as we
want.”
In less than that space of time the regiment,
now galloping, found themselves in the
47
immediate rear of the fighting line, and
opened out and prepared to advance. In
front of them three regiments of Dutch cavalry
were being beaten back by a French
brigade, and just when the English volunteers
arrived the French received a large accession
of strength, and the Dutch, broken
and ridden down by weight of men and
horses, were driven back. It was in vain that
their colonel ordered his men to charge, for
in fifty yards the mass of Dutch cavalry in
front were thrown upon them and broke
their line. It was now a man to man and
hand to hand conflict for a few minutes, and
Claverhouse, when he had disentangled himself
from the hurly-burly, and forced his way
through the mass, was in immediate conflict
with a French officer in front of their line,
whom he disarmed by a clever sword trick
which he had learned from a master of arms
in the French service. A French soldier
missed Claverhouse’s head by a hair’s-breadth,
while he, swerving, struck down another
on his right. Carlton had disappeared,
Hales had been wounded, but in the end
escaped with his life. Collier and Claverhouse
were now in the open space behind the
first line of the French cavalry, and they
could see more than one Dutch officer and
48
some of the Dutch troopers also in the same
dangerous position. Graham was considering
what to do when he caught sight, a short
distance off on the left, of a figure he seemed
to know: it was an officer riding slowly along
the line as if in command, and taking no heed
of the many incidents happening round him.
“Collier,” cried Graham, “see you who
that is among the French soldiers alone and
at their mercy? As I am a living man it is
the Prince himself. Good God! how did he
get there, and what is he going to do?”
While Graham was speaking the Prince of
Orange, who was now quite close to him, but
gave no sign that he recognized him, suddenly
threw out an order in French to the regiment
behind which he was riding, and which was
hewing its way through a mass of Dutch. He
called on them to halt and reform, and their
officers supposing him to be one of their generals
who had arrived from headquarters, set
to work to extricate their men from the mêlée.
The Prince passed with the utmost coolness
through their line as if to see what was doing
in front, while Claverhouse and Collier followed
him as if they were attached. As soon
as he had got to the open space in front, for
what remained of the Dutch were in rapid
retreat, and were scattering in all directions,
49
he put spurs to his horse, and shouting to
Claverhouse and Collier to follow rapidly,
for his trick had already been detected, he
galloped forward to the place where the
crowd of fugitives was thinnest, that he might
as soon as possible rejoin his staff and resume
command when above all times a general was
needed. A French officer, however, had recognized
him as he passed through the line,
and now with some dozen soldiers was pursuing
at full speed. The Prince’s horse had
been wounded in two places and was also
blown with exertion, and passing over some
marshy ground had not strength to clear it,
but plunged helplessly in the soft soil. In
two minutes, the French would have been
upon them and made the greatest capture of
the war. Claverhouse, leaping off his horse,
asked the Prince to mount, who, instantly and
without more than a nod, sprang into the
saddle and escaped when the Frenchmen were
within a few yards. Claverhouse fired at the
French officer and missed him, but brought
down his horse, which did just as well, and
Collier sent his sword through the shoulder
of the French soldier who followed next.
Claverhouse, seizing this minute of delay, ran
with all his might for a hedge, over which
dismounted stragglers were climbing in hot
50
haste, and made for the nearest gap. It was
blocked by a tall and heavily-built Dutch dragoon,
who could neither get through nor back,
and was swearing fearfully.
Claverhouse fired at the French officer and missed him, but brought down his horse. Page 49.
“It’s maist awfu’ to see a Christian man
misusing the Lord’s mercies like that,” and
at the sound of that familiar voice Claverhouse
turned to find Grimond by his side,
who had been out in the hope of finding his
master, and had certainly come to his aid at
the right time.
“Would onybody but a blunderin’ fool of
a Dutchman think of blockin’ a passage when
the troops are in retreat? If we canna get
through him, we had better get ower him.
I’ve helped ye across a dyke afore, Maister
John, and there ye go.” Claverhouse, jumping
on Grimond, who made a back for him,
went over the Dutchman’s shoulders. Then
he seized the Dutchman by his arm, while
Grimond acted as a battering-ram behind: so
they pulled what remained of him, like a cork
out of the mouth of a bottle, and Grimond
followed his master. Collier, who had been
covering the retreat, left his horse to its fate,
and ran by the same convenient gap.
“To think o’ the perversity o’ that Dutchman
obstructin’ a right o’ way, especially on
sich a busy day, wi’ his muckle unmannerly
51
carcase, as if he had been a Highland cattle
beast. Dod! he would make a grand Covenanter
for the cursed thrawnness o’ him.”
That night when the English volunteers,
who had all escaped with some slight wounds
and the loss of their baggage, were going over
the day’s work, an officer attached to the
Prince asked if a Scots gentleman called Mr.
Graham was present. When Claverhouse
rose and saluted him, the officer said, with
the curt brevity of his kind, “His Highness
desires your presence,” and immediately
turned and strode off in the direction of the
headquarters, while Claverhouse, shrugging
his shoulders, followed him in his usual leisurely
fashion. On arriving at the farm-house
where the Prince had gone after the French
had retired, Graham was immediately shown
into his room. The Prince, rising and returning
Claverhouse’s respectful salutation, gave
him one long, searching glance, and then said:
“You did me a great service to-day, and saved
my person from capture, perhaps my life
from death. I do not forget any man who
has done me good, and who is loyal to me.
What you desire at my hands I do not know,
and what it would be best to do for you I do
not yet know. If you determine after some
experience to remain in my service, and if
52
you show yourself the good soldier I take you
to be, you will not miss promotion. That is
all I will say to-night, for I know not where
your ambitions may lie.” The Prince looked
coldly at Graham’s love-locks and Cavalier
air. “Your cause may not be my cause. I
bid you good-evening, Mr. Graham. We shall
meet again.”
53
“You have the devil’s luck, Graham,” said
Rooke, who had taken a meal fit for two men,
and now had settled down to smoke and drink
for the evening. “To get the best place in the
attack to-day on the town, and to escape with
nothing more than a cat scratch, which will
not hurt your beauty, is more than any ordinary
man can expect. There will be some
hot work before Grave is taken, and plenty
of good men will get their marching orders,”
for the Prince and his troops were now besieging
Grave keenly, and the English volunteers
were messing together after an assault
which had captured some of the outworks.
“I would lay you what you like, Rooke,”
drawled Venner, “if I were not a Puritan,
and didn’t disapprove of drinking and gambling
and other works of Satan, that Chamilly
will come to terms within fourteen days. He
has no stomach for those mortars that are
playing on the place, and he knows that
54
Orange, having got his teeth in, will never
take them out. Another assault like to-day
will settle the matter. Graham here used to
say that his Highness was an icicle, but I
judge him a good fighting man. You will get
as much as you want if you follow the Prince.
Ballantine that’s gone to-day always said that
there was no soldier in Europe he would put
before the Prince. Speaking about that, who,
think you, will get the place of lieutenant-colonel
in the Scots Brigade in succession to
Sir William?”
“Don’t know, and don’t care,” said Collier,
stretching himself and yawning. “It
will go to some officer of the Scots Brigade,
and though I am a born Scot, nobody remembers
that, and I pass for an Englishman.
And to tell the truth, I’m happier with you
volunteers than among those canny Scots;
they are as jealous and as bigoted as a Roundhead
Conventicle, and I don’t envy the man
who gets promotion among them. But it
doesn’t concern any of us.”
“There I differ with you, comrade,” broke
in Carlton. “You seem to have forgotten
that one of our good company is not only a
Scot, but has done the Prince priceless service.
I make little doubt that we shall hear
news in twenty-four hours. We are proud to
55
have Mr. Graham with us, for he is a good
comrade and a good soldier, but I expect to-morrow
to drink a flask of wine to his commission
as lieutenant-colonel. What say you
to my idea?”
“If promotion went by merit, I’m with
you, Carlton; but, faith, it goes by everything
else, and specially back-door influence. A
man gets his step, not because he is a good
soldier, but because he has got a friend at
court, or he is the same religion as the general,
or I have heard cases where it went by
gold.”
“That such things are done, Rooke, I will
not deny, but they say that promotion goes
fairly where his Highness commands; he has
an eye for a good soldier, and you have forgotten
that he would not be in his place to-day
had it not been for our comrade’s help.”
“I remember that quite well, and I wish
to God other people may remember, for Graham
ran a pretty good chance of closing his
life that day and never seeing Scotland again,
but Princes have short memories. If Charles
II. of sainted character had called to his mind
that my grandfather, more fool he, melted all
his plate and lost all his land, to say nothing
of three or four sons, for the Stuart cause, I
would not be a gentleman volunteer in this
56
army without a spare gold piece in my pocket.
Kings bless you at the time with many pretty
words, and then don’t know your face next
time you meet; but I wish you good luck,
Graham, and I drink your health. What
think you yourself?”
“What I ought to think, gentlemen, is that
I am much honored to have your good opinion
and your friendly wishes.” And Graham
gathered them all with a smile that gave his
delicate and comely features a rare fascination.
“You are true comrades as well as
brave gentlemen. I will not deny, though I
would only say it among my friends, that I
have thought of that vacancy, and have wondered
whether the appointment would come
my way. I received, indeed, a private word
to apply for it this evening, but that I will
not do. The Prince knows what I have done,
though I do not make so much of saving his
life as you may think. If he is pleased to
give me this advance, well, gentlemen, I hope
I shall not bring disgrace upon the Scots
Brigade. But let us change the subject. We
be a barbarous people in the North, but after
all a gentleman does not love to talk about
his own doings, still less of his own glory. To
bed, my comrades, we may have heavy work
to-morrow.”
57
The Prince gave his troops a day’s rest,
and left the artillery to do their work, and
Claverhouse was reading for the sixth time
some letters of his mother’s, when Grimond
came in with the air of a man full of news,
but determined not to tell them until he was
questioned, and even then to give what he had
grudgingly and by way of favor.
“What news, did ye say, Mr. John? Weel,
if ye mean from Scotland, ye have the last
yersel’ in the letters of your honorable mither.
What I am hearing from some Scot that cam
oot o’ the west country is that if the council
does na maister the Covenanters, the dear
carles will maister them, and then Scotland
will be a gey ill place to live in. It will be a
fine sicht when you and me, Claverhouse, has
to sign the Solemn League and Covenant, and
hear Sandy Peden, that they call a prophet,
preachin’ three hours on the sins o’ prelacy
and dancin’. My certes!” And at the
thought thereof Grimond lost the power of
speech.
“Never mind Scotland, Jock, just now;
the auld country will take care of herself till
we go home, and then we’ll give such assistance
as in the power of a good sword. Who
knows, man, but we’ll be riding through the
muirs of Ayrshire after something bigger
58
than muir-fowl before many years are over?
But the camp, man, what’s going on here this
morning, and what are the folk talking about,
for, as ye know, I’ve been on the broad of my
back after yesterday’s work?”
“If ye mean by news, laird, what wasna
expected, and that, I’m judging, is a correct
definition o’ news, there’s naethin’ worth
mentionin’. A dozen more Scots have come
to get their livin’ or their death, as Providence
wills, in a foreign army, instead of
working their bit o’ land on a brae-side in
bonnie Scotland. But that’s no news, for it
has been goin’ on for centuries, and I’m expectin’
will last as long as thae foreign bodies
need buirdly men and Scotland has a cold
climate.
“They are saying, I may mention, that
Chamilly is getting sick o’ these mortars, and
didna particularly like the attack yesterday,
and the story is going about that he will soon
ask for terms, and that if he gets the honors
of war the Prince may have the town. It will
be another feather in his cap, and, to my
thinkin’, he has got ower many for his deservin’––an
underhand and evil-hearted loon.”
And Grimond spoke with such vehemence and
a keen dislike that Claverhouse suspected he
had heard something more important than he
had told.
59
“‘Is that all?’ ye ask, Claverhouse, and I
reply no; but I wish to gudeness that it was.
If news be what has happened, even though
some of us expected it, then I have got some,
although I would rather that my tongue was
blistered than tell it. It cam into my mind
that the Prince micht be appointin’ the new
colonel to the Scots Brigade this mornin’, and
so I just happened to give a cry on an Angus
man who is gettin’ his bit livin’ as a servant
to one of the aides-de-camp. He is called a
Dutchman, but has honest Scots blood in his
veins. We havered about this and about that,
and then I threipit (insisted) that he would
never hear onything that was goin’ on, and,
for example, that he wouldna know who was
the new colonel. ‘Div I no?’ said Patrick
Harris. ‘Maybe I do, but maybe I wouldna
be anxious to tell ye, Jock Grimond, for ye
michtna be pleased.’ ‘Pleased or no pleased,’
I said, ‘let me hear his name.’ ‘Well,’ he
answered, ‘if ye maun have it, it’s no your
maister that folk thought would get it.’
‘Then,’ said I, ‘Patrick, I jalouse who it
is; it’s MacKay of Scourie.’ ‘It is,’ said
Patrick. ‘I heard it when I was standin’
close to the door, and I canna say that I’m
pleased.’ Naither was I, ye may depend upon
it, Claverhouse, but I wouldna give onybody
60
the satisfaction of knowing what I thocht.
So I just contented mysel’ wi’ sayin’, ‘Damn
them baith, the are for an ungrateful scoundrel,
and the other for a plottin’, schemin’
hypocritical Presbyterian. I cam to tell ye,
but no word would have passed my lips if ye
hadna chanced to ask me.”
“Jock, you’ve been a faithful man to the
house of Graham for many years,” said
Claverhouse, after a silence of some minutes,
during which Grimond busied himself polishing
his master’s arms, “and I will say to you
what I am not going to tell the camp, that
you might have brought better news. Whether
I was right or wrong, man, I had set my heart
upon succeeding Ballantine, and I was imagining
that maybe this very afternoon I could
write home to my mother and tell her that her
son was a lieutenant-colonel in the good Scots
Brigade. But it’s all in the chances of war,
and we must just take things as they come.
Do ye know, Jock, I often think I was born
like the Marquis, under an unlucky star, and
that all my life things will go ill with me, and
with my cause. I dinna think that I’ll ever
see old age, and I doubt whether I’ll leave an
heir to succeed me. I dreamed one nicht that
the wraith of our house stood beside my bed
and said, ‘Ye’ll be cursed in love and cursed
61
in war, and die a bloody death at the hand of
traitors whom ye trusted.’”
“For God’s sake, Maister John, dinna
speak like that.” And Grimond’s voice, hard
man though he was, was nigh the breaking.
“It’s no chancy, what ye say micht come to
pass if ye believe it. Whatever the evil spirit
said in the veesions o’ the nicht––oh! my laddie,
for laddie ye have been to me since I
learned ye to ride your pony and fire your
first shot, ye mauna give heed or meddle wi’
Providence. Ye have been awfu’ favored wi’
the bonniest face ever I saw on a man, so that
there’s no a lass looks on ye but she loves ye,
and the hardiest body ever I kenned. Ye
have the best blood of Scotland in your veins,
and I never saw ye fearful o’ onything; ye
have covered yersel’ wi’ glory in this war,
and I prophesy there will be a great place
waiting you in the North country. There’s
no a noble lady in Scotland that wouldna be
willing to marry you, and I’m expectin’ afore
I die to see you famous as the great Marquis
himsel’, wi’ sons and daughters standin’ round
ye. I ken aboot the wraith o’ the house o’
Graham, a maleecious and lying jade. If she
ever comes to ye again by nicht or day, bid
her begone to the evil place in the name o’
the Lord wha redeemed us.”
62
“You’re a trusty friend, Grimond, for
both my mother and myself count you more
friend than servant, and you’ve spoken good
words; but I take it this day’s happenings
are an omen of what is coming. Maybe I am
ower young to take black views o’ hidden
days, but ye’ll mind afterwards, Jock Grimond,
when ye wrap me in a bloody coat for
burial, for there will be no shroud for me,
that I said the shadow began to fall at the
siege of Grave. But there’s no use complaining,
man; our cup is mixed, and we must
drink it, bitter or sweet. Aye, the Grahams
are a doomed house, and we maun dree oor
weird (suffer our destiny).”
“Weird,” broke out Grimond, with a revulsion
from pathos to anger. “Ye speak
as if it were the will o’ the Almichty, but I
am thinkin’ the thing was worked from another
quarter. Providence had very little
hand in it, unless ye call Captain Hugh MacKay
Providence, and in that case it’ll be true
what some folks say, that the devil rules the
world. From all I can gather, and I keep my
ears open when you are concerned, laird, I
am as sure as you are Laird of Claverhouse
that Scourie, confoond his smooth face, has
been plottin’ aginst ye ever since ye sat that
nicht afore the Battle of Sineffe roond the
63
camp-fire. I saw how he looked, and I said
to mysel’, ‘You’re up to some mischief.’ His
party hangit the noble Marquis and plagued
him wi’ their prayers on the scaffold, and it
is as natural for a Covenanter to hate a Graham
as to eat his breakfast. MacKay saw
we were dangerous, and ye’ll be more dangerous
yet, Claverhouse, to the black crew. He
has been up the back stairs tellin’ lies aboot
ye, and sayin’ that though many trust ye, for
a’ that ye are an enemy to Presbytery. Ye’ll
have your chance yet, laird, and avenge the
murder o’ the Marquis, but there’ll be no
place for ye here so long as MacKay is pourin’
the poison o’ asps, as auld David has it, into
the Prince’s ear.”
“Na, na, Mr. John,” concluded Grimond
when his master had remonstrated with him
for speaking against the Prince and an officer
of the army, and warned him to be careful of
his tongue, “ye needna be feart that a word
o’ this will be heard ootside. I mind the word
in the Good Book, ‘Speak not against the
King, lest a bird of the air carry the matter.’
There’s plenty o’ birds in this camp that
would be glad enough to work us wrang. Gin
onybody speaks to me aboot Captain MacKay
being made a colonel, I’ll give him to
understand that my master was offered the
64
post and declined to take it for special reasons
o’ his own; maybe because ye wanted to
stay wi’ the gentlemen volunteers, and maybe
because there was a grand position waitin’
for ye in Scotland. Let me alone, laird, for
makin’ the most o’ the situation: but dinna
forget MacKay.”
Claverhouse was of another breed from
Grimond, and had the chivalrous instincts of
his house, but as the time wore on and Graham
went with the Prince’s guards after the
surrender of Grave to The Hague, where
Colonel MacKay and the Scots Brigade were
also stationed, the constant spray of insinuations
of MacKay’s cunning and the Prince’s
prejudice began to tell upon his mind. He
was conscious of a growing dislike towards
MacKay, beyond that coolness which must always
exist between men of such different religious
and political creeds. It was a tradition
among the Scots Royalists from the days
of Montrose that the Whig Highlanders, such
as the Campbells, were cunning and treacherous,
and then it was right to admit that MacKay
might think himself justified in warning
the Prince of Orange, who was surrounded
by Presbyterians, and already coming under
the masterful influence of Carstairs, the minister
of the Presbyterian Church, and afterwards
65
William’s most trusted councillor, that
Graham belonged to a thoroughgoing and
dangerous Cavalier house, and that it would
not be wise to show him too much favor. Although
they were fellow-soldiers, and had
met in camp life from time to time, they had
never been anything more than distant acquaintances.
Now it seemed to Claverhouse
that MacKay looked at him more coldly than
ever, and that he had caught a triumphant
expression in his eye. MacKay was getting
upon his nerves, and he had come to hate the
sight of him. As a matter of fact, and as
Claverhouse granted to himself afterwards,
while MacKay was not his friend and could
not be, he had never said a word against him
to the Prince, and if he had used no influence
for him, had never tried to hinder his promotion.
The day was coming when Claverhouse
would acknowledge that though MacKay was
on the wrong side, he had conducted himself
as became a man of blood and a brave soldier.
In those days at The Hague, disappointed
about promotion, and with evil news from
Scotland, to say nothing of Grimond ever at
his elbow goading and inflaming him through
his very loyalty, Claverhouse allowed himself
to fall into an unworthy and inflammatory
temper. When one is in this morbid state of
66
mind, he may at any moment lose self-control,
and it was unfortunate that, after a long
tirade one morning from Grimond, who professed
to have new evidence of MacKay’s
underhand dealing, Claverhouse should have
met his supposed enemy in the precincts
of the Prince’s house. MacKay was going
to wait upon the Prince, and was passing
hurriedly with a formal salutation, when
Claverhouse, who in this very haste found
ground of offence, stood in the way.
“May I have the honor, if you be called
not immediately to the Prince’s presence, to
wish you good-morning, Colonel MacKay,
and to say, for it is better to give to a man’s
face what one is thinking behind his back,
that, although I have not the satisfaction of
speaking much with you, I hear you are busy
enough speaking about me.”
“If we do not meet much, Claverhouse,”
replied MacKay, with a look of surprise on
his calm and composed face, “this is not my
blame, and doubtless it may be counted my
loss. It is only that our duties lie apart and
we keep different company. I know not
what you mean by your charge against me,
which, I take it, comes to this, that I have
said evil of you to some one, I know not
whom, and in some place I know not where.
67
Is that why you have been avoiding me, and
even looking at me as if I were your enemy?
My time is short, but this misunderstanding
between gentlemen can surely be quickly
cleared. I pray you of your courtesy, explain
yourself and give your evidence.”
“No doubt you have little time, and no
doubt you will soon be busy with the same
work. You were born of a good house, though
it has taken an evil road in these days; you
know the rules by which a man of blood
should guide his life, and the things it were a
shame for him to do, even to the man he may
have to meet on the battle ground. Is it fitting,
Scourie, to slander a fellow-officer to his
commander, and so to pollute his fountain of
influence that he shall not receive his just
place? You have asked what I have against
you; now I tell you, and I am ashamed to
bring so foul an accusation against a Scots
gentleman.”
“Is that the cause of your black looks and
secret ill-will?” And MacKay was as cold
as ever, and gave no sign that he had been
stirred by this sudden attack. “In that case
I can remove your suspicion, and prevent any
breach between two Scots officers who may
not be on the same side in their own country,
but who serve the same Prince in this land.
68
Never have I once, save in some careless and
passing reference, spoken about you with the
Prince, and never have I, and I say it on the
honor of a Highland gentleman, said one
word against you as a man or as a soldier.
You spoke of evidence. What is your evidence?
Who has told you this thing, which
is not true? Who has tried to set you on fire
against me?”
“It is not necessary, Colonel MacKay, to
produce any witness or to quote any saying
of yours. The facts are known to all the
army; they have seen how it has fared with
you and with me. I will not say whether I
had not some claim to succeed Ballantine as
lieutenant-colonel in the Scots Brigade, and
I will not argue whether you or I had done
most for his Highness. I have not heard that
you saved his life, or that he promised to show
his gratitude. I will not touch further on that
point, but how is it, I ask you, that since that
day, though I had my share of fighting at the
siege of Grave and elsewhere as ye know,
there is no word of advance for me? If you
can read this riddle to me and keep yourself
out of it, why then I shall be willing to take
your hand and count you, Presbyterian
though you be, an honest man.”
“Why ask those questions of me, especially
69
as ye seem to doubt my word, Captain Graham?”
And for the first time MacKay
seemed stung by the insinuation of dishonorable
conduct. “If you will pardon my advice,
would it not be better that you go yourself
to the Prince and ask him if any man has
injured you with him, and how it is you have
not received what you consider your just reward?”
“That is cheap counsel, Hugh MacKay,
and mayhap you gave it because you knew it
would not be taken. Never will I humble myself
before that wooden image, never will I
ask as a favor what should be given as my
right. It were fine telling in Scotland that
John Graham of Claverhouse was waiting
like a beggar upon a Dutch Prince. I would
rather that the liars and the plotters whom
he makes his friends should have the will of
me.”
MacKay’s face flushes for an instant to a
fiery red, and then turns ghastly pale, and
without a word he is going on his way, but
Claverhouse will not let him.
“Will nothing rouse your blood and touch
your honor? Must I do this also?” And
lifting his cane he struck MacKay lightly
upon the breast. “That, I take it, will give
a reason for settling things between us. Mr.
70
Collier will, I make no doubt, receive any officer
you are pleased to send within an hour,
and I will give you the satisfaction one gentleman
desires of another before the sun
sets.”
“You have done me bitter wrong, Captain
Graham.” And MacKay was trembling with
passion, and putting the severest restraint
upon his temper, which had now been fairly
roused. “But I shall not do wrong against
my own conscience. When I took up the
honorable service of arms, I made a vow unto
myself and sealed it in covenant with God
that I would accept no challenge nor fight any
duel. It is enough that the blood of our enemies
be on our souls. I will not have the guilt
of a fellow-officer’s death, or risk my own life
in a private quarrel. I pray you let me pass.”
“It is your own life you are concerned
about, Colonel MacKay,” answered Claverhouse,
with an evil smile full of contempt,
and in the quietest of accents, for he had resumed
his characteristic composure, “your
own precious life, which you desire to keep
in safeguard.” Then, turning with a graceful
gesture to some officers who had been
passing and been arrested by the altercation,
Claverhouse said with an air of careless languor:
“May I have the strange privilege
71
never given me before, and perhaps never to
be mine again, of introducing you, by his
leave or without it, to a Scot whom no one
can deny is by birth a gentleman, and whom
no one can deny now is also a coward––Lieutenant-Colonel
MacKay, of the Prince’s
Scots Brigade.”
72
When his first fierce heat cooled, and
Claverhouse had time for reflection, he was
by no means so well satisfied with himself as
he had imagined he would be in the foresight
of such a scene. For one thing he had
shown the soreness of his heart in not getting
promotion, and had betrayed a watchful suspiciousness,
which was hardly included in a
chivalrous character. He had gone out of
his way to insult a fellow-Scot, and a fellow-officer
who had never pretended to be his
friend, and who was in no way bound to advance
his interest, because, to put it the worst,
MacKay had secured his own promotion and
not that of Claverhouse. As regards MacKay’s
courage, it had been proved on many
occasions, and to call him a coward was only
a childish offence, as if one flung mud upon
a passer-by. When Claverhouse reviewed
his conduct, and no man was more candid in
self-judgment, he confessed to himself that
73
he had played an undignified part, and was
bitterly chagrined. The encounter, of course,
buzzed through the camp, and every man
gave his judgment, many justifying Captain
Graham, and declaring that he had shown
himself a man of mettle––they were the
younger and cruder minds––many censuring
him for his insolent ambition and speaking
of him as a brawling bravo––they were some
of the staid and stronger minds. His friends,
he noticed, avoided the subject and left him
to open it if he pleased, but he gathered beforehand
that he would not receive much
sympathy from that figure of common-sense
Carlton, nor that matter-of-fact soldier
Rooke, and that the ex-Puritan Venner
would only make the incident a subject of
satirical moralizing. With another disposition
than that which Providence had been
pleased to give John Graham, the condemnation
of his better judgment, confirmed by the
judgment of sound men, would have led him
to the manly step of an apology which would
have been humiliating to his pride, but certainly
was deserved at his hands. Under the
domination of his masterful pride, which was
both the strength and the weakness of Graham’s
character, making him capable of the
most absolute loyalty, and capable of the
74
most inexcusable deeds, a pride no friend
could guide, and no adversity could break,
Claverhouse fell into a fit of silent anger with
himself, with MacKay, with his absent critics,
with the Prince. It was also in keeping with
his nature to be that afternoon gayer than
usual––recalling the humorous events of
early days with Grimond, who could hardly
conceal the satisfaction he dared not express,
treating every man he met with the most
gracious courtesy, smiling approval of the
poorest jest, and proposing healths and
drinking national toasts that evening with
his friends as if nothing had happened, and
no care heavier than thistledown lay upon
his mind. But Claverhouse knew that the incident
was not closed, and he was not surprised
when an officer attached to the Prince’s
person called at his lodging and commanded
his presence at the Prince’s house next morning.
He was aware that in striking MacKay
and challenging him to a duel he had infringed
a strict law, which forbade such
deeds within the Royal grounds.
William of Orange was a younger man
than when England knew him, and he came
as king to reign over what was ever to him
a foreign people, as he was to them an unattractive
monarch. He was a man of slight
75
and frail body; of calm and passionless nature,
capable as few men have been of silence
and reserve. His mind worked, as it were,
in vacuo, secluded from the atmosphere of
tradition, prejudice, emotions, jealousies. It
was free from moods and changes, clear,
penetrating, determined, masterful. Against
no man did he bear a personal grudge, for
that would have only deflected his judgment
and embarrassed his action. For only two or
three men had he any personal affection;
that also might have affected the balance of
his judgment and the freedom of his action.
His courage was undeniable, his spirit of
endurance magnificent, his military talents
and his gift of statesmanship brilliant. Perhaps,
on the whole, his most valuable characteristic
qualities were self-control and a
spirit of moderation, which enabled him to
warm his hands at other men’s fires and to
avoid the perils of extremes. His weakness
was the gravity of his character, which did
not attract the eye or inspire devotion in the
ordinary man, and an inevitable want of imagination,
which prevented him entering into
the feelings of men of a different caste. It
would, indeed, have been difficult to find a
more vivid contrast between the two men
who faced each other in the Prince’s room,
76
and who represented those two schools of
thought which have ever been in conflict in
religion––reason and authority, and those two
types of character which have ever collided
in life––the phlegmatic and the empassioned.
“What, I pray you, is the reason of your
conduct yesterday in the precincts?” asked
the Prince at once after formally acknowledging
Claverhouse’s reverence. “I am informed
upon good evidence that you wantonly
insulted Lieutenant-Colonel MacKay
of the Scots Brigade, and that you invited
him to a duel, and that when he, as became
an officer of judgment and piety, as well as
of high courage, declined to join with you in
a foolish and illegal act, that you called him
a coward. Have I been rightly informed?
“Then that point is settled as I expected,
and in order that you may not make any mistake
on this matter I will add, though I am
not obliged to do so, that Colonel MacKay
did not condescend to inform against you.
The scandal was public enough to come from
various quarters, and now to my chief question,
have you anything to say in your defence?”
“Nothing, sir,” replied Claverhouse. “I
judged that Colonel MacKay had done me a
77
personal injury for which I desired satisfaction
in the way that gentlemen give. He has
a prudent dislike to risk his life, although I
endeavored to quicken his spirit. And so I
allowed him to know what I thought of him,
and some officers who overheard our conversation
seemed to have been so much pleased
with my judgment that they carried it round
the army. In this way I presume it came to
your Highness’s ears. That is all,” concluded
Graham with much sweetness of manner,
“that I have to say.”
“It is what you ought to be ashamed to
say, Mr. Graham,” said William severely.
“Neither of us are old men, but I take it you
are older than I am–––”
“I am twenty-six years of age, may it
please your Highness,” interpolated Claverhouse,
“and have served in two armies.”
“We are, at any rate, old enough not to
play the fool or carry ourselves like headstrong
boys. As regards your quarrel, I am
given to understand that the cause lies not
so much with your fellow-officer as with your
general. You are one of that large company
who can be found in all armies, who are disappointed
because, in their judgment, promotion
has not corresponded with their merits.
Be good enough to say if I do you an
78
injustice? You are silent, then I am right.
And so, because another officer was promoted
before you, you choose to take offence and
try to put shame upon a gallant gentleman.
Is this”––the Prince inquired with a flavor
of contempt––“how well-born Scots carry
themselves in their own country?”
“Your Highness’s reasoning,” replied
Graham with elaborate deliberation, “has
convinced me of my error, but I should like
to make this plea, that if I had not been carried
by a gust of passion in the park yester-morning,
I had not disputed with Colonel
MacKay. It still seems to me that he has
been treated with over much kindness in this
matter of promotion, in which––it may be
their foolishness––soldiers are apt to be jealous,
and I have been in some degree neglected.
But I most frankly confess that I have been
in the wrong in doing what I did, since it was
more your Highness’s business than mine to
have resented this quarrel.”
“What mean you by this word, for it has
an evil sound?” But there was not a flush
on William’s pale, immovable face, and it
was marvellous to see so young a Prince
carry himself so quietly under the polite
scorn of Claverhouse’s manner and the rising
insolence of his speech.
79
“As your Highness insists, it is my pleasure
to make my poor meaning plain in your
Highness’s ears. If I know what happened,
Colonel MacKay, reaching the highest quarter
by the back stair, persuaded your Highness
to give him the colonelcy, although it in
honor belonged to another officer, and I submit
to your Highness’s judgment that it was
you who should have flicked him with your
cane. Colonel MacKay has done John Graham
of Claverhouse less injury in disappointing
him of his regiment, though it has
been a grievous dash, than in inducing your
Highness to break your promise.” And
Claverhouse, whose last word had fallen in
smoothness like honey from the comb, and
in venom like the poison of a serpent, looked
the Prince straight in the face and then bowed
most lowly.
“You are, I judge, Captain Graham, recalling
a certain happening at the Battle of
Sineffe, when you rendered important service
to me, and it may be saved my life. If
you conclude that this has been forgotten, or
that a Prince has no gratitude, because you
did not obtain the place you coveted, then
understand that you are wrong, and that
with all your twenty-six years and your service
in two armies, you are ignorant of the
80
principle on which an army should be regulated.
Upon your way of it, if any young
officer, more raw in character than in years,
and not yet able to rule his own spirit, or to
keep himself from quarrelling like a common
soldier, should happen to be of use in a strait––I
acknowledge the strait––to a king, his
foolishness should be placed in command of
veteran officers and men. It were right to
recompense him at the cost of the Prince,
mayhap, but not at the cost of gallant soldiers
whom he was unfit to govern, because he
could not govern himself.”
Whether William was angry at Claverhouse’s
impertinence, or was no more touched
than the cliff by the spray from a wave, only
his intimates could have told, but in this conflict
between the two temperaments, the
Prince was in the end an easy victor. If
William had no boiling point, Claverhouse,
though as composed in manner as he was
afterwards to be cruel in action, had limits
to his self-restraint. As the Prince suggested
that, though two years older than himself,
he was a shallow-pated and self-conceited
boy, who was ever looking after his
own ends, and when he was disappointed,
kicked and struggled like a child fighting
with its nurse; that, in fact, in spite of thinking
81
himself a fine gentleman, he ought to
know that he had neither sense nor manners,
and was as yet unfit for any high place,
Claverhouse’s temper gave way, and he
struck with cutting words at the Prince.
“What I intended to have said, but my
blundering speech may not have reached
your Highness’s mind, is that if a Prince
makes a promise of reward to another man
who has saved his life at the risk of his own,
that Prince is bound to keep his word or to
make some reparation. And there is a debt
due by your Highness to a certain Scots officer
which has not been paid. Is a Prince
alone privileged to break his word?”
“You desire reparation,” answered the
Prince more swiftly than usual, and with a
certain haughty gesture, “and you shall
have it before you leave my presence. For
brawling and striking within our grounds,
you are in danger of losing your right arm,
and other men have been so punished for
more excusable doings. You have been complaining
in a public place that you have not obtained
a regiment, as if it were your due, and
you have charged your general with the worst
of military sins after cowardice, of being a
favorer. I bestow upon you what will be
more valuable to you than a regiment which
82
you have not the capacity to command. I
give you back your right arm, and I release
you from the service of my army.”
“May I ask your Highness to accept my
most humble and profound gratitude for
sparing my arm, which has fought for your
Highness, and if it be possible, yet deeper
gratitude for releasing me from the service
of a Prince who does not know how to keep
his word. Have I your Highness’s permission
to leave your presence, and to make
arrangements for my departure from The
Hague?”
Claverhouse spoke with an exaggerated
accent of respect, but the words were so
stinging that William’s eyes, for an instant
only, flashed fire, and the aide-de-camp in
the room made a step forward as if to arrest
the Scots officer. There was a pause, say, of
fifteen seconds, which seemed an hour, and
then the Prince ordered his aide-de-camp to
leave the chamber, and William and Claverhouse
stood alone.
“You are a bold man, Mr. Graham,” said
the Prince icily, “and I should not judge you
to be a wise one. It is not likely that you will
ever be as prudent as you are daring, and I
foresee a troubled career, whether it be long
or short, for you.
83
“No man, royal or otherwise, has ever
spoken to me as you have done; mayhap in
the years before me, whether they be few or
many, no one will ever do so. As you know,
for what you have said any other Prince in
my place would have you punished for the
gravest of crimes on the part of an officer
against his commander.”
Claverhouse bowed, and looked curiously
at the Prince, wondering within himself what
would follow. Was it possible that his Highness
would lay aside for an hour the privilege
of royalty and give him satisfaction? Or was
he merely to lecture him like the Calvinistic
preachers to whom his Highness listened,
and then let him go with contempt? Claverhouse’s
indignation had now given way to intellectual
interest, and he waited for the decision
of this strong, calm man, who, though
only a little more than a lad, had already the
coolness and dignity of old age.
“Were I not a Prince, and if my creed of
honor were different from what it is, I should
lay aside my Princedom, and meet you sword
in hand, for I also, though you may not believe
it, have the pride of a soldier, and it
has been outraged by your deliberate insolence.
Whether it was worthy of your courtesy
to offer an insult to one who cannot
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defend himself, I shall leave to your own
arbitrament, when you bethink yourself in
other hours of this situation. I pray you
be silent, I have not finished. My intention
is to treat your words as if they had never
been spoken. The officer in attendance has
learned better than to blaze abroad anything
that happens in this place, and you will do as
it pleases yourself, and is becoming to your
honor as a gentleman. I have no fear of you.
You are a brave man whatever else you be;
you will do me the justice of believing I am
another.” Claverhouse remembered this
was the first moment that he had felt any
kindness to the Prince of Orange.
“My reason for dealing with you after
this fashion is that you have some cause to
complain of injustice, and to think that the
good help you gave has been forgotten, because
I have not said anything nor done anything.
This is not so, for I have not been
certain how I could best recompense you.
When a moment ago I spoke of you as not fit
for promotion, I did you injustice, for,
though there be some heat in you, there is
far more capacity, and I take it you will have
high command some day.” The last few
words were spoken with a slight effort, and
Graham, when in his better mood the most
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magnanimous of men, was suddenly touched
by the remembrance of the Prince’s station
and ability, his courage and severity, and his
grace in making this amend to one who had
spoken rudely to him. Claverhouse would
have responded, but was again silent in obedience
to a sign from the Prince.
“Let me say plainly, Mr. Graham, that
you are a soldier whom any commander will
be glad to enroll for life service in his army,
but”––and here his Highness looked searchingly
at Graham as he had once done before––“I
doubt whether your calling be in the
Dutch army or in any army that is of our
mind or is likely to fight for our cause.
“It is not given to man to lift the veil that
hides the future, but we can reason with ourselves
as to what is likely, and guide our
course by this faint light. I have advices
from Scotland, and I know that the day will
come, though it may not be yet, when there
will be a great division in that land and the
shedding of blood. Were you and I both in
your country when that day comes, you, Mr.
Graham, would draw your sword on one side
and I on the other.
“We may never cross one another in the
unknown days, but each man must be true to
the light which God has given him. Colonel
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MacKay will fulfil his calling in our army
and on our side; in some other army and for
another side you will follow your destiny. It
is seldom I speak at such length; now I have
only one other word to say before I give you
for the day farewell.
“Mr. Graham, I know what you think of
me as clearly as if you had spoken. Let me
say what I think of you. You are a gallant
gentleman, full of the ideas of the past, and
incapable of changing; you will be a loyal
servant to your own cause, and it will be
beaten. To you I owe my life. Possibly it
might have been better for you to have let
me fall by the sword of one of Condé’s dragoons,
but we are all in the hands of the Eternal,
Who doeth what He wills with each man.
You will receive to-day a captain’s commission
in the cavalry, and in some day to come,
I do not know how soon, and in a way I may
not at present reveal to you, I will, if God
please, do a kindness to you which will be
after your own heart, and enable you to rise
to your own height in the great affair of life.
I bid you good-morning.”
Few men were ever to hear the Prince of
Orange use as many words or give as much
of his mind. As Claverhouse realized his
fairness and understood, although only a
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little, then, of his foresight, and as he came
to appreciate the fact that the Prince was
trying to do something more lasting for him
than merely conferring a commission, he was
overwhelmed with a sense of the injustice he
had done his Highness. He also realized his
own petulance with intense shame.
“Will your Highness forgive my wild
words, for which I might have been justly
punished”––Graham, with an impulse of
emotion, stepped forward, knelt down, and
kissed the Prince’s hand––“and the shame
I put upon a Scots gentleman, for which I
shall apologize this very day. My sword is at
your Highness’s disposal while I am in your
service and this arm is able to use it. If in
any day to come it be my fate to stand on
some other side, I shall not forget I once
served under a great commander and a most
honorable gentleman, who dealt graciously
with me.”
Two years passed during which Captain
Graham saw much fighting and many of his
fellow-officers fall, and it was in keeping
with the character of the Prince that during
all that time he took no special notice of
Claverhouse, and gave no indication that he
had that interview in mind. Claverhouse
had learned one lesson, however––patience––and
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he would have many more to learn; he
had also been taught not to take hasty views,
but to wait for the long result. And his
heart lifted when, after the abortive siege of
Charleroi, he was summoned for a second
time to the Prince’s presence. On this occasion
the Prince said little, but it was to the
point; it was the crisis in Claverhouse’s life.
“Within a few days, Captain Graham,”
said the Prince, with the same frozen face,
“I leave for London. I may not speak about
my errand nor other things which may happen,
but if it be your will, I shall take you in
attendance upon me. At the English court
I may be able to give you an introduction
which will place you in the way of service
such as you desire, and if it be the will of
God, high honor. For this opportunity,
which I thought might come some day, I have
been waiting, and if it be as I expect, you
will have some poor reward for saving the
life of the Prince of Orange.”
It was known by this time in the army,
and, indeed, throughout Europe, that William
of Orange was going to wed the Princess
Mary, who was the daughter of the Duke
of York, the King of England’s brother, and
likely to be herself the daughter of an English
sovereign. For certain reasons it seemed
89
an unlikely and incongruous alliance, for
even in the end of 1677, when the marriage
took place, anyone with prescience could foresee
that there would be a wide rift between the
politics of the Duke of York when he became
King and those of William, and even then
there must have been some who saw afar off
the conflict which ended in William and Mary
succeeding James upon the throne of England.
There were many envied Claverhouse
when it came out that he was to be a member
of the Prince’s suite, and be associated with
the Prince’s most distinguished courtiers.
But he carried himself, upon the whole, with
such graciousness and gallantry that his
brother officers congratulated him on every
hand, and feasted him so lavishly before he
left that certain of his own comrades of the
Prince’s guard were laid aside from duty for
several days. It was to the credit of both
men that on the morning of his departure one
of his last visitors was Colonel MacKay, who
wished him success, and prophesied that they
would hear great things of him in days to
come, since it was understood that Claverhouse
would not return to the Dutch service.
For some time after the arrival of the
Prince and his staff in London, William gave
no sign of the good he was going to do Claverhouse.
90
Indeed, he was busy with the work of
his wooing and the arrangements for his marriage.
Claverhouse by this time had learned,
however, that William forgot nothing and
never failed to carry out his plans, and his
pulse beat quicker when the Prince requested
him to be in attendance one afternoon, and
to accompany him alone to Whitehall, where
the Duke of York was in residence. There
was a certain superficial likeness in character
between the Prince and his father-in-law, for
both appeared unfeeling and unsympathetic
men, but what in James was obstinacy, in
William was power, and what in James was
superstitious, in William was religion, and
what in James was pride, in William was dignity.
His friends could trust William, but
no one could trust James; while William
could make immense sacrifices for his cause,
James could wreck his cause by an amazing
blindness and a foolish grasping at the shadow
of power. If anyone desired a master under
whom he would be led to victory, and by
whom he would never be put to shame, a
master who might not praise him effusively
but would never betray him, then let him, as
he valued his life and his career, refuse James
and cleave to William. But it is not given
to a man to choose his creed, far less his destiny,
91
and Claverhouse was never to have fortune
on his side. It was to be his lot rather
to be hindered at every turn where he should
have been helped, and to run his race alone
with many weights and over the roughest
ground.
“Your Highness has of your courtesy
allowed me to present in public audience the
officers who have come with me from The
Hague,” said the Prince of Orange to James,
“and now I have the pleasure to specially introduce
this gentleman who was lately a captain
in my cavalry, and who some while ago
rendered me the last service one man can do
for another. Had it not been for his presence
of mind and bravery of action, I had
not the supreme honor of waiting to-day
upon your Highness, and the prospect of
felicity before me. May I, with the utmost
zeal towards him and the most profound respect
towards your Highness, recommend to
your service Mr. Graham of Claverhouse,
who distinguished himself on many fields of
battle, and who is a fine gentleman and a
brave officer fit for any post, civil or military.
I will only say one thing more: he belongs
to the same house as the Marquis of
Montrose, and has in him the same spirit of
loyalty.”
92
Claverhouse, overcome by the remembrance
of the past, is stirred to the heart, and can
hardly make his reverence for emotion. As
he kisses James’s hand he registers a vow
which he was to keep with his life. And
when he has left the presence of the Duke,
the Prince of Orange said to Claverhouse’s
new master: “You have, sir, obtained a servant
who will be faithful unto death; I make
him over to you with confidence and with regret.
This day, I believe, he will begin the
work to which he has been called, and so far
as a man can, he will finish it.”
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BOOK II — CHAPTER I — A COVENANTING HOUSE — CHAPTER II — THE COMING OF THE AMALEKITE — CHAPTER III — BETWEEN MOTHER AND LOVER — CHAPTER IV — “THY PEOPLE SHALL BE MY PEOPLE, THY GOD MY GOD”
The glory of Paisley Castle has long departed,
but it was a brave and well-furnished
house in the late spring of 1684, to which this
story now moves. The primroses were blooming
in sheltered nooks, where the keen east
wind––the curse and the strength of Scotland––could
not blight them, and the sun had
them for his wooing; there were signs of
foliage on the trees as the buds began to
burgeon, and send a shimmer of green along
the branches; the grass, reviving after winter,
was showing its first freshness, and the
bare earth took a softer color in the caressing
sunlight. The birds had taken heart
again and were seeking for their mates, some
were already building their summer homes.
Life is one throughout the world, and the
stirring of spring in the roots of the grass
and in the trunks of the trees touches also
human hearts and wakes them from their
winter. The season of hope, which was softening
94
the clods of the field, and gentling the
rough massive walls of the castle, were also
making tender the austere face of a Covenanting
minister standing in one of the deep
window recesses of what was called in Scots
houses of that day the gallery, and what
was a long and magnificent upper hall,
adorned with arms and tapestry. He was
looking out upon the woods that stretched to
the silver water of the Clyde, then a narrow
and undeveloped river, and to the far-away
hills of Argyleshire, within which lay the
mystery of the Highlands. Henry Pollock
had been born of a Cavalier and Episcopalian
family, with blood as loyal as that of Claverhouse;
he had been brought up amid what
the Covenanters called malignant surroundings,
and had been taught to regard the Marquis
of Montrose as the first of Scotsmen and
the most heroic of martyrs. Although the
senior of Claverhouse by two years, he had
been with him at St. Andrew’s University,
and knew him well, but in spite of his heredity
Pollock had ever carried a more open
mind than Graham. During his university
days he had heard the saint and scholar of
the Covenant, Samuel Rutherford, who was
principal and professor in the university and
a most distinguished preacher of his day in
95
Scotland. No doubt Rutherford raged furiously
against prelacy as a work of the devil,
and the enemy of Scots freedom; no doubt
he also wrote books which struck hard at the
authority of the King, and made for the
cause of the people. His name was a reproach
among Pollock’s friends, and Pollock
began with no sympathy towards Rutherford’s
opinions, but the lad’s soul was stirred
when, in the college chapel of St. Andrew’s
and also in the parish kirk where Rutherford
was colleague with that servant of the
Lord Mr. Blair, he listened to Rutherford
upon the love of God and the loveliness of
Christ. One day he was present, standing
obscure among a mass of townsfolk, when
Rutherford, after making a tedious argument
on the controversies of the day which
had almost driven Pollock from the Kirk,
came across the name of Christ and then,
carried away out of his course as by a magnet,
began to rehearse the titles of the Lord
Jesus till a Scots noble seated in the kirk
cried out, “Hold you there, Rutherford.”
And Pollock was tempted to say “Amen.”
With his side he resented the Covenanting
regime, because it frowned on gayety and
enforced the hateful Covenant, but even then
the lad wished that his side had preachers to
96
be compared with Rutherford and Blair,
and the words of Rutherford lay hidden in
his heart. When the Restoration came he
flung up his cap with the rest of them, and
drank only too many healths to King Charles.
For a while he was intoxicated with the triumph
of the Restoration, but there was a
vein of seriousness in him as well as candor,
and as the years passed and the people were
still drinking, and as the tyranny of Cromwell
gave place to the brutality of the infamous
crew, Lauderdale, the renegade, and
others, who misruled Scotland in the name
of the King, Pollock was much shaken, and
began to wonder within himself whether the
Presbyterians, with all their bigotry, may not
have had the right of it. If they did not
dance and drink they prayed and led God-fearing
lives, and if they would not be driven
to hear the curates preach, there was not too
much to hear if they had gone. When the
Covenant was the symbol of oppression, Pollock
hated it, when it became the symbol for
suffering he was drawn to it, till at last, to
the horror of his family, he threw in his lot
with the Covenanters of the west of Scotland.
Being a lad of parts with competent scholarship,
and having given every pledge of sincerity,
he was studying theology in Holland,
97
while Claverhouse was fighting in the army
of the Prince, and he was there ordained to
the ministry of the kirk. When one has
passed through so thorough a change, and
sacrificed everything which is most dear for
his convictions, he is certain to be a root and
branch man, and to fling himself without reserve,
perhaps also, alas, without moderation,
into the service of his new cause. Pollock
was not of that party in the kirk which
was willing to take an indulgence at the
hands of the government and minister
quietly in their parishes, on condition that
they gave no trouble to the bishops. He
would take no oaths and sign no agreements,
nor make any compromise, nor bow down to
any persecutor. He threw in his lot with the
wild hillmen, who were being hunted like
wild birds upon the mountains by Claverhouse’s
cavalry, and as he wandered from
one hiding place to another, he preached to
them in picturesque conventicles, which
gathered in the cathedral of the Ayrshire
hills, and built them up in the faith of God
and of the Covenant. Like Rutherford, who
had been to him what St. Stephen was to St.
Paul, he was that strange mixture of fierceness
and of tenderness which Scots piety has
often bred and chiefly in its dark days. He
98
was not afraid to pursue the doctrine of Calvin
to its furthest extreme, and would glorify
God in the death of sinners till even the stern
souls of his congregation trembled. Nor was
he afraid to defend resistance to an unjust
and ungodly government, and he was willing
to fight himself almost as much, though not
quite, as to pray.
But even the gloomiest and bitterest bigots
that heard him, huddled in some deep morass
and encircled by the cold mist, testified that
Henry Pollock was greatest when he declared
the evangel of Jesus, and besought his hearers,
who might before nightfall be sent by
a bloody death into eternity, to accept Christ
as their Saviour. When he celebrated the
sacrament amid the hills, and lifted up the
emblems of the Lord’s body and blood, his
voice broken with passion, and the tears
rolling down his cheeks, they said that his
face was like that of an angel. Times without
number he had been chased on the moors;
often he had been hidden cunningly in shepherd’s
cottages, twice he had eluded the dragoons
by immersing himself in peat-bogs,
and once he had been wounded. His face
could never at any time have been otherwise
than refined and spiritual, but now it was
that of an ascetic, worn by prayer and fasting,
99
while his dark blue eyes glowed when he
was moved like coals of fire, and the golden
hair upon his head, as the sun touched it, was
like unto an aureole. Standing in the embrasure
of that gallery, which had so many
signs of the world which is, in the pictures
of sport upon the walls and the stands of
arms, he seemed to be rather the messenger
and forerunner of the world which is to
come. As he looks out upon the fair spring
view, he is settling something with his conscience,
and is half praying, half meditating,
for, in his lonely vigils, with no company but
the curlew and the sheep, he has fallen upon
the way of speaking aloud.
“There be those who are called to live
alone and to serve the Lord night and day
in the high places of the field, like Elijah,
who was that prophet, and John the Baptist,
who ran before the face of the Lord. If this
be Thy will for me, oh, God, I am also willing,
and Thou knowest that mine is a lonely life,
and that I bear in my body the marks of the
Lord Jesus. If this be my calling, make
Thy way plain before Thy servant, and give
me grace to walk therein with a steadfast
heart. He that forsaketh not father and
mother ... and wife for His name’s sake,
is not worthy.” And then a change came
over his mood.
100
“But the Master came not like the Baptist;
He came eating and drinking; yea, He
went unto the marriage of Cana in Galilee,
and He blessed little children and said, ‘For
of such is the Kingdom of God.’ Thou
knowest, Lord, that I have loved Thy children,
and when a bairn has smiled in my face
as I baptized it into Thy name, that I have
longed for one that would call me father.
When I have seen a man and his wife together
by the fireside, and I have gone out to
my hiding-place on the moor, like a wild
beast to its den, I confess, oh, Lord, I have
watched that square of light so long as I
could see it, and have wondered whether
there would ever be a home for me, and any
woman would call me husband. Is this the
weakness of the flesh; is this the longing of
the creature for comfort; is this the refusing
of the cross; is this my sin? Search me,
oh, God, and try me.” And again the gentler
mood returned. “Didst Thou not set the
woman beside the man in the Garden? Has
not the love of Jacob for Rachel been glorified
in Thy word? Art not Thou Thyself the
bridegroom, and is not the kirk Thy bride?
Are we not called to the marriage supper of
the Lamb? Is not marriage Thine own ordinance,
and shall I count that unclean, as
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certain vain persons have imagined, which
Thou hast established? Oh, my Saviour,
wast Thou not born of a woman? My soul
is torn within me, and unto Thee, therefore,
do I look for light; give me this day a sign
that I may know what Thou wouldst have me
to do, that it may be well for Thy cause in
the land, and the souls of Thy servants committed
to my charge.”
He is unconscious of everything except the
agony of duty through which he is passing,
and his words, though spoken low, have a
sweet and penetrating note, which arrest the
attention of one who has come down the gallery,
and is now standing at the opening of
the alcove where Pollock is hidden. It is his
hostess, the widow of Lord Cochrane, the
eldest son of the Earl of Dundonald, who was
still living, though old and feeble, and who
left the management of affairs very much to
Lady Cochrane. Like many other families
in the days of the “Troubles,” the Cochranes
was a house divided against itself, although
till now the strength had been all on one side.
Lord Dundonald had been a loyal adherent
of the Stuarts, and had rendered them service
in earlier days, for which it was understood
he had received his earldom; but he was a
broken man now, and had no strength in him
102
to resist his masterful daughter-in-law. She
was a child of the Earl of Cassillis, one of
the stoutest and most thoroughgoing of Covenanters;
her husband had died in the year
when the Battle of Bothwell-Brig had been
fought, and his last prayers were for the success
of the Covenanters. His younger brother
had been one of the Rye House Plot men, and
was now an exile for the safety of his life in
Holland. By her blood and by her sympathy,
by everything she thought and felt,
Lady Cochrane was a Covenanter, and in her
face and figure, as she stands with the light
from the window falling upon her, she symbolizes
her cause and party. Tall and strong-boned,
with a lean, powerful face, and clear,
unrelenting eyes, yet with a latent suggestion
of enthusiasm which would move her to any
sacrifice for what she judged to be righteousness,
and with an honest belief in her religious
creed, Lady Cochrane was one of the godly
women of the Covenant. The old Earl had
no chance against her resolute will, and contented
himself with a quavering protest
against her ideas, and bleating disapproval of
her actions. When she denounced the Council
as a set of Herods, and filled the house
with Covenanting ministers and outlawed
persons, his only comfort and sympathizer
103
was Lady Cochrane’s daughter Jean. This
young woman had of late taken on herself
the office of protector, and had shown a tendency
to criticise both her mother’s words and
ways, which led to one or two domestic scenes.
For though her ladyship was loud against the
tyranny of the government, she was an absolute
ruler in her own home. And that day she
was going to assert herself and put down an
incipient rebellion.
“I give you good-morning, Mr. Pollock,”
said Lady Cochrane, “and I crave your pardon
if I have done amiss, but since you were,
as I take it, wrestling in prayer I had not the
mind to break in upon you; I have therefore
heard some portion of your petitions. It
seems to me, though in such matters I am but
blind of eye and dull of hearing, that God indeed
is giving a sign of approval when He
seems to have been turning your heart unto
the thought of the marriage between the bridegroom
and the bride in the Holy Scriptures,
of which other marriages are, I take it, a
shadow and a foretaste.”
“It may be your ladyship is right,” said
Pollock after he had returned his hostess’s
greeting, “but we shall soon know, for God
hath promised that light shall arise unto the
righteous. For myself, I declare that as it
104
has happened on the hills when I was fleeing
from Claverhouse, so it is now in my affairs.
I am moving in a mist which folds me round
like a thin garment; here and there I see the
light struggling through, and it seems to me
most beautiful even in its dimness; by and
by the mist shall altogether pass, and I shall
stand in the light, which is the shining of His
face. But whether I shall then find myself
at Cana of Galilee or in the Garden of Gethsemane,
I know not.”
“If it were in my handling,” said Lady
Cochrane, regarding her guest with a mixed
expression of admiration and pity, “ye would
find yourself, and that without overmuch delay,
at a marriage feast. The dispensation
of John Baptist is done with in my humble
judgment, and I count the refusing to marry
to be pure will-worship and a soul-destroying
snare of the Papists. Ye are a good man,
Mr. Henry, and a faithful minister of the
Word, but ye would be a better, with fewer
dreams and more sense for daily duty, besides
being more comfortable, if you had a
wife. Doubtless the days are evil, and there
be those who would say that this is not a time
to marry, but if you had the right wife it is
no unlikely ye might be safer than ye are to-day.
For there would be a big house to hide
105
you, and, at the worst, you and she could make
your ways to Holland, and get shelter from
the Prince till those calamities be overpast.”
“My fear,” continued her ladyship, “is
not that ye will do wrong in marrying, but
that ye may fail to win the wife ye told me
yesterday was your desire. No, Mr. Henry,
it is not that I am not with you, for I am a
favorer of your suit. In those days when the
call is for everyone to say whether he be for
God or Baal, I would rather see my daughter
married to a faithful minister of the kirk,
than to the proudest noble in Scotland, who
was a persecutor of the Lord’s people. As
regards blood, I mind me also that ye belong
to an ancient house, and as regards titles, it
was from King Charles the earldom came to
the Cochranes, and the most of the nobles he
has made have been the sons of his mistresses.
There will soon be more disgrace than honor
in being called a lord in the land of England.”
“It may be,” hazarded Pollock anxiously,
“that the Earl then does not look on me with
pleasure, and as the head of the house–––”
“As what?” said Lady Cochrane. “It is
not much his lordship has to say on anything,
for his mind is failing fast, and it never, to
my seeing, was very strong. He says little,
and it’s a mercy he has less power, or rather,
106
I should say, a dispensation of Providence,
for if the misguided man had his way of it,
Jean would be married to-morrow to some
drinking, swearing officer in Claverhouse’s
Horse, or, for that matter, to that son of
Satan, Claverhouse himself.”
“While I am here,” continued this Covenanting
heroine, “you need not trouble yourself
about the Earl of Dundonald, but I cannot
speak so surely for my daughter. Jean’s
name was inserted in the Covenant, and she
has been taught the truth by my own lips, besides
hearing many godly ministers, but I
sorely doubt whether she be steadfast and
single-hearted. It was only two days ago she
lent her aid to her grandfather when he was
havering about toleration, and before all was
done she spoke lightly of the contendings of
God’s remnant in this land, and said that if
they had the upper hand Scotland would not
be fit to live in. So far as I can see she has
no ill-will to you, Mr. Henry, and has never
said aught against you. Nay, more, I recall
her speaking well of your goodness, but
whether she will consent unto your plea I
cannot prophesy. Where she got her proud
temper and her stubborn self-will passes my
mind, for her father was an exercised Christian
and a douce man, and there never was a
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word of contradiction from him all the days
of our married life. It may be the judgment
of the Lord for the sins of the land, that the
children are raising themselves against their
parents. Be that as it may, I have done my
best for you, and now I will send her to the
gallery and ye must make your own suit. I
pray God her heart may be turned unto you.”
When the daughter came down the middle
of the gallery, with an easy and graceful carriage,
for she was a good goer, it would seem
as if the mother had returned, more beautiful
and more gentle, yet quite as strong and
determined. Jean Cochrane––whose proper
style as a lord’s daughter would be the Honorable
Jean, but who, partly because she was
an earl’s granddaughter, partly in keeping
with the usage of the day, was known as
Lady Jean––was like her mother, tall and well
built, straight as a young tree, with her head
set on a long, slender neck, and in conversation
thrown back. Her complexion was perfect
in its healthy tone and fine coloring; she
had a wealth of the most rich and radiant auburn
hair, somewhat like that of Pollock, but
redder and more commanding to the eye; her
eyes were sometimes gray and sometimes blue,
according to their expression, which was ever
changing with her varying moods. This is no
108
girl of timid or yielding nature who can be
coaxed or driven, or of clinging and meek
affection. This is a woman full grown, not
in stature only, but in character, of high ambition,
of warm passion, of resolute will and
clear mind, who is fit to be the mate for a
patriot, in which case she would be ready to
accompany him to the scaffold, or for a soldier,
in which case she would send him to his
death with a proud heart. Her mobile face,
as flexible as that of a supreme actress, is set
and hard when she enters the gallery, for she
and her mother had just crossed swords, and
Lady Jean knew for what end she had been
asked to meet the Covenanter. Lady Cochrane
was an unhappy advocate for such a
plea, and with such a daughter, although she
might have been successful with a helpless
and submissive girl. With that look in her
eyes, which are as cold as steel and have its
glitter, one could not augur success for any
wooer. It was a tribute not so much to the
appearance of Pollock as to the soul of the
man shining through his face in most persuasive
purity and sincerity, that when they met
and turned aside into that window space and
stood in the spring sunlight, her face softened
towards him. The pride of her carriage
seemed to relax, and the offence went out of
109
her eyes, and she gave him a gracious greeting,
and no woman, if she had a mind, could
be more ingratiating. Then, still standing,
which suited her best, and looking at him
with not unfriendly gravity, she waited for
what he had to say.
“Lady Jean,” he began, “your honorable
mother has told you for what end I desired
speech with you this day, and I ask you to
give me a fair hearing of your kindness, for
though I have been called of God to declare
His word before many people, I have no skill
in the business to which I now address myself.
In this matter of love between a man
and a maid I have never before spoken, and
if I succeed not to-day, shall never speak
again. Bear with me when I explain for
your better understanding of my case, that I
began my life in the faith of my family, and
that I came into the Covenant after I was a
man. I was called, as I trust of God, unto
the ministry of the Evangel, and I have exercised
it not in quiet places, but in the service
of God’s people who are scattered and
peeled among the hills. It seemed therefore
of my calling that I should live as a Nazarite
and die alone, having known neither wife nor
child, and indeed this may be my lot.” Having
said so much, as he looked not at the girl
110
but out of the window, he now turned his face
upon her, which, always pale, began now to
be ashen white, through rising emotion and
intensity of heart.
“Two years ago I first came to this castle
and saw you; from time to time upon the errands
of my master or sheltering from my
pursuers I have lived here, and before I knew
it I found my heart go out to you, Lady Jean,
so that on the moors I heard your voice in the
singing of the mountain birds, and saw your
face with your burning hair in the glory of
the setting sun. The thought of you was
never far from me, and the turn of your head
and your step as you have walked before me
came ever to my sight. Was not this, I said
to myself, the guidance of the Lord in Whose
hands are the hearts of men, and Who did
cause Isaac to cleave to Rebecca? But, again,
might it not be that I was turning from the
way of the cross and following the desires of
my own heart? I prayed for some token, and
fourteen days ago this word in the Song of
Solomon came unto me, and was laid upon
my heart. ‘Behold thou art fair, my love,
behold thou art fair, thou hast dove’s eyes
within thy locks, thy hair is as a flock of goats
that appear from Mount Gilead.’ Wherefore
I make bold to speak to you to-day, and
111
on your reply will hang the issue of my after
life.” His eyes had begun to shine with mystic
tenderness and yearning appeal, so that
she, who had been looking away from him,
could not now withdraw her gaze.
“Is there in your heart any kindness and
confidence towards me, and have you been
moved to think of me as one whom you could
wed and whose life you could share? It is not
to wealth nor to honor, it is not to ease and
safety that I invite you, Lady Jean; you must
be prepared to see me suffer, and you must
be willing that I should die. What I could
do to protect and cherish you, if God gave
you to me, I should, and next to the Lord who
redeemed me, you would be the love of my
heart in time and also in eternity, where we
should follow the Lord together, unto living
fountains of waters.”
It was not the wooing of quieter days or
gentler lives; it was not after this fashion
that a Cavalier would have spoken to his
ladylove, but his words were in keeping with
the man, and streamed from the light of his
eyes rather than from his lips. And the girl,
who had come to say no as briefly and firmly
as might be consistent with courtesy, was
touched in the deepest part of her being, and
for the moment almost hesitated.
112
“Ye have done me the chief honor a man
can offer to a woman, Mr. Pollock, and Jean
Cochrane will never forget that ye asked her
in marriage. It cannot be, and it is better
that I should say this without delay or uncertain
speech, but I pray you, Mr. Henry,
understand why, and think me not a proud
or foolish girl. It is not that I do not know
that you are a holy and a brave man, whom
the folk rightly consider to be a saint, and
whom others say would have made a gallant
soldier. It is not that I doubt the woman ye
wedded would be well and tenderly loved, for,
I confess to you, ye seem to me to have the
making of a perfect husband. And it is not
that I”––and here she straightened herself––“would
be afraid of any danger, or any suffering
either, for myself or you. I should
bid it welcome, and if I saw you laid dead for
the cause ye love, I should take you in my
arms and kiss you on the mouth, though you
were red with blood, as I never kissed you
living on our marriage day.” And she carried
her head as a queen at the moment of her
coronation.
“No,” she went on, while the glow faded
and her voice grew gentle; “it is for two reasons,
but one of them I tell you only to yourself,
in the secrecy of your honor. I admire
and I––reverence you as one lifted above
113
me like a saint, but this is not the feeling of
a woman for the man that is to be her husband.
I do not love you as I know I shall in
an instant love the man who is to be my man
when I first see him, and for whom I shall
forsake without any pang my father’s house,
or else, if he appear not, I shall never wed.
That mayhap is reason enough, but I am dealing
with you as a friend this day. Though my
name be in the Covenant, I am not sure––oh,
those are dark times––whether I would write
it to-day with my own hand. I might be able
to do so when I was your wife, but that I may
not be. Yet it is left to me, Mr. Henry, to
have your name in my prayers, that God may
keep you in the hard road ye have chosen, and
give you in the end a glorious crown. And I
will ask of you to mention at a time Jean
Cochrane before the throne of grace. For
surely ye will be heard, and blessed shall she
be for whom ye pray.”
For an instant there was silence, and then,
before she left, Lady Jean, as Pollock stood
with head sunk on his breast and lips moving
in prayer, bent forward and kissed him on
the forehead. When an hour later the minister
descended to Lady Cochrane’s room, he
told her that his suit was hopeless, but that
he was thankful unto God that he had spoken
with Lady Jean.
114
It would have been hard to find within the
civilized world a more miserable and distracted
country than Scotland at the date of
our history, and the West Country was worst
of all. The Covenanters, who were never
averse to fighting, had turned upon Claverhouse
and his dragoons when they came to
disperse a field-meeting at Drumclog, and
had soundly beaten the King’s Horse. Then,
gathering themselves to a head and meeting
the royal forces under the Duke of Monmouth
at Bothwell Bridge, they had in turn
been hopelessly crushed. What remained of
their army was scattered by the cavalry, and
since that day, with some interludes, Claverhouse
had been engaged in the inglorious
work of dispersing Presbyterian Conventicles
gathered in remote places among the hills, or
searching the moss-hags for outlawed preachers.
It was a poor business for one who had
seen war on the grand scale under the Prince
115
of Orange, and had fought in battles where
eighteen thousand men were left on the field.
War was not the name for those operations,
they were simply police work of an irksome
and degrading kind. There were some who
said that Claverhouse gloried in it, and that
the inherent cruelty of his nature was gratified
in causing obstinate Covenanters, who
had not taken the oath, to be shot on the spot,
and haling others to prison, where they were
treated with extreme barbarity. Others believed
that being a man of broad mind and
chivalrous temper, he absolutely disapproved
of the government policy and loathed the
butcher work to which he and his troopers
were set.
Upon one way of it he was a bloodthirsty
tyrant, and upon the other he was an obedient
soldier, but the truth was with neither
view. There is no doubt that, like any other
ambitious commander, he would much rather
have been engaged in a proper campaign, and
it may be granted that as a brave man he did
not hanker to be the executioner of peasants;
but he absolutely approved of the policy of
his rulers, and had no scruple in carrying it
out. It was the only thing that could be done,
and it had better be done thoroughly; the
sooner the turbulent and irreconcilable Covenanters
116
were crushed and the country reduced
to peace the better for Scotland. And
it must be remembered that, though they were
only a fraction of the nation, the hillmen
were a very resolute and harassing fraction,
and kept the western counties in a state of
turmoil. No week passed without some picturesque
incident being added to the annals
of this lamentable religious war, and whether
it was an escape or an arrest, an attack or a
defeat, the name of Claverhouse was always
in the story. The air was thick with rumors
of his doings, and in every cottage enraged
Covenanters spoke of his atrocities. No
doubt the king had other officers quite as merciless
and almost as active, and the names of
men like Grierson of Lag and Bruce of
Earleshall and that fierce old Muscovite
fighter, General Dalziel, were engraved for
everlasting reprobation upon the memory of
the Scots people. But there was no superstition
so mad that it was not credited to
Claverhouse, and no act so wicked that it was
not believed of him. During the hours of
day he ranged the country, a monster thirsting
for the blood of innocent men, and the
hours of the evening he spent with his associates
in orgies worthy of hell. His horse,
famous for its fleetness and beauty, was supposed
117
to be an evil spirit, and as for himself,
everyone knew that Claverhouse could not be
shot except by a silver bullet, because he was
under the protection of the devil. Perhaps
it is not too much to say that during those
black years––black for both sides, and very
much so for Claverhouse––he was, in the imagination
of the country folk, little else than
a devil himself, and it was then he earned the
title which has clung to him unto this day
and been the sentence of his infamy, “Bloody
Claverse.”
Although there were not many houses of
importance in the west which Graham had
not visited during those years, it happened
that he had never been within Paisley Castle,
and that he had never met any of the family
except the earl and his aged countess. Lady
Cochrane and the Covenanting servants could
have given a thumb-nail sketch of him which
would have done for a mediæval picture of
Satan, and an accompanying letter-press of
his character which would have been a slander
upon Judas Iscariot. Her heroic ladyship
had, however, never met Claverhouse,
and she prayed God she never would, not because
she was afraid of him or of the devil
himself, but because she knew it would not be
a pleasant interview on either side. But it
118
was not likely in those times that the Dundonalds
should altogether escape the notice
of the government, or that Graham, ranging
through the country seeking whom he might
devour, as the Covenanters said, should not
find himself some day under their roof. The
earl himself was known to be well affected,
and in any case did not count, but Lady
Cochrane was a dangerous woman, and her
brother-in-law, Sir John, had been plotting
against the government and was an exile.
No one was much surprised when tidings
came to the castle early one morning that
Claverhouse with two troops of his regiment,
his own and the one commanded by Lord
Ross, Jean Cochrane’s cousin, was near
Paisley, and that Claverhouse with Lord
Ross craved the hospitality of the castle. It
was natural that he should stay in the chief
house of the neighborhood, and all the more
as Lord Dundonald was himself notoriously
loyal, but it was suspected that he came to
gather what information he could about Sir
John Cochrane, and to warn Lady Cochrane,
the real ruler of the castle, to give heed to
her ways.
“The day of trial which separates the
wheat from the chaff has come at last, as I
expected it would,” said Lady Cochrane, with
119
pride triumphing over concern; “it would
have been strange and a cause for searching
of hearts if the enemy had visited so many
of God’s people and had passed us by as if
we were a thing of naught, or indeed were
like unto Judas, who had made his peace with
the persecutors. Have ye considered what ye
will do, my lord?” she said to the earl, who
was wandering helplessly up and down the
dining-hall.
“Do, my lady?” It was curious to notice
how they all called her my lady. “I judge that
Claverhouse and any servants he brings must
be our guests, and of course Ross. But you
know more about what we can do than I. Do
you think we could invite the other officers
of his troop? There will be Bruce of Earleshall
and––” Then, catching Lady Cochrane’s
eye, he brought his maundering plans of hospitality
to a close. “Doubtless you will send
a letter and invite such as the castle may accommodate.
I leave everything, Margaret, in
your hands.”
“I invite John Graham of Claverhouse
and his bloody crew, officers or men it matters
not, to cross our threshold and break
bread within our walls––I, a daughter of the
house of Cassillis and the widow of your
faithful son? May my hand be smitten helpless
120
forever if I write such a word, and my
tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if
I welcome this slayer of the saints to my
home!” And Lady Cochrane rose from her
place and stood like a lioness at bay. “Receive
that servant of the Evil One into Paisley
Castle? Yea, I would receive him if I
could. If early word had been sent of his
approach and it were in my power, I would
call together every man in this region who
is true unto God and the Covenant, and I
would close the gates of the castle and bid
the persecutor take it by force. I should
count it an honor before the Lord to shed my
own blood in its defence. But I doubt that
may not be.”
“What shall I do, then?” in answer to a
quavering question from the earl, who was
now huddled in a chair before the huge open
fireplace. “I would leave the castle if it
were not too late, and seek some lodging till
Claverhouse be gone, for I fear to dwell beneath
the same roof with this man of blood
lest the Lord smite us with a common destruction.
See him or speak with him I will
not; I will to my own rooms, and there I
will seclude myself, praying that God may
speedily judge this man, and cast him from
his place. Lord Dundonald, I will leave it
121
to you to play the host: very likely ye will
not have much sorrow over it, for ye have
more than a friendly heart to the Malignants.”
“It seems to me, if I be not too bold in
saying it, that ye are taking a wise course,
my lady, for there might arise some slight
debate between you and Claverhouse, and
that in the present circumstances would not
be convenient. Not quite, as I said, convenient.
You are a brave woman, Margaret,
and worthy of your honorable house, but
Claverhouse is the king’s officer, and I forget––my
memory is not what it was––the
number of men in a troop, but he has two
troops with him. Apart from that,” rambled
on the earl, “we must remember John, who
is in danger, and we may not give offence if
we can speak a canny word which will get the
right side of Claverhouse.”
“Ye have learned your lesson well, my
lord, and ye will do your part in this day of
expediency when men are more concerned
about their safety and that of their children
than that of the kirk of God and the cause
of righteousness. I make sure that there will
be much fair talk between you and your
guests, but I cannot breathe this air, and so
you will excuse me from your company.
122
Jean, you will come with your mother and
stay with me till this plague has left the
house, for I count a visit of Claverhouse
worse than leprosy or the black death.”
“Craving your pardon, mother,” said
Jean, who had been listening to this conversation
with intense sympathy, and entering
keenly into the contrast between the earl
and Lady Cochrane, “I will not go with you
and hide myself till Colonel Graham be gone.
There should, it seems to me, be some woman
by the side of the head of the house, especially
when he is no longer young, to receive
Claverhouse, for whether we hate or love him
he is our guest while underneath this roof.
I am not afraid of him, and I will make free
to confess that I desire to see this man of
whom we have heard so much ill. It may be,
after all, that he is not what those foolish
people think. At any rate, by your leave, I
shall stand by the earl’s side if he will have
me.”
“Ye speak boldly, girl. Though you have
often debated with me more than was becoming,
I do not recall till this day that ye
have disobeyed me. But be it so, since this
gives pleasure to his lordship” (who had
crept over and was standing, as it were,
under the shield of his bold granddaughter).
123
“Only, one word of warning, if ye be not too
proud and high-minded to take it. Albeit
this man has the heart of Pontius Pilate, and
will be the curse of everyone that has to do
with him, yet the story goes that the master
whom he serves has given him a fair face
and beguiling words, and I bid you beware.
But from what I hear outside it is time I left.
Your guest is at your gate: I pray you may
have comfort in him, and that he may not
bring a shadow to this home.” And Lady
Cochrane swept her majestic way out of the
dining-hall; and retired to her apartments in
another wing.
As she left, the earl, with Jean, went to the
public door of the hall to meet Lord Ross and
Claverhouse, who, without waiting for any
invitation to stay in the castle, had come to
pay their respects to the earl. They were
already ascending the narrow stone stairs by
which visitors came from the courtyard to the
hall, and almost as soon as the earl and Jean
had taken their places, Lord Ross came
through the doorway, and having bowed to
the earl turned aside to present Claverhouse.
Jean saw him for the first time framed in
the arch of the door, and never while she
lived, even after she was the loyal wife of
another man, forgot the sight. Ten years
124
had passed since Graham jested at the camp-fire
with his comrades of the English Volunteers,
on the night before the battle of Sineffe,
but war, with many anxieties, had left
only slight traces upon his face. He was no
longer a soldier of fortune, but the commander
of “His Majesty’s Own Regiment
of Horse,” and a colonel in the king’s army.
By this time also he was a member of the
Privy Council, and a favorite person at
Court; he had held various offices and taken
part in many public affairs. Yet he was the
same gracious and engaging figure, carrying
on his face the changeless bloom of youth,
though now thirty-six years of age. He was
in the handsome uniform of his regiment,
completed by a polished and gleaming breastplate
over which his neckerchief of white
lace streamed, while his face looked out from
the wealth of brown hair which fell over his
shoulders. His left hand rested on his sword,
and Jean marked the refinement and delicacy
of his right hand, which was ungloved,
as if for salutation. The day had been
cloudy, and the hall, with its stone floor, high
roof, oaken furniture, and walls covered by
dark tapestry, was full of gloom, only partially
relieved by the firelight from the wide,
open hearth. While Claverhouse was coming
125
up the stairs to the sound of his spurs and
the striking of his sword against the wall, the
sun came out from behind a cloud, and a ray
of light streaming from an opposite window
fell upon the doorway as he entered. It lingered
but for a moment, and after touching
his picturesque figure as with a caress, disappeared,
and the eyes of John Graham and
Jean Cochrane met.
They were the opposite of each other: he
slight and graceful, she tall and strong; he
dark and rich of complexion, with hazel eye,
she fair and golden, with eyes of gray-blue;
he a born and convinced Cavalier, and she a
born and professed Covenanter; he a kinsman
of the great marquis whom the Covenanters
beheaded, and she on her mother’s
side the daughter of a house which hated
Montrose and all his works. There was nothing
common between them; they stood distant
as the east from the west, and yet in that
instant their hearts were drawn together.
They might never confess their love––there
would be a thousand hindrances to give it
effect––it was in the last degree unlikely that
they could ever marry, but it had come to
pass with them as with innumerable lovers,
that love was born in an instant.
“I thank you, my lord,” said Claverhouse,
126
bowing low to the earl, “for this friendly
greeting, and for the invitation you now give
to be your guest during my short stay in the
district. It is strange that through some
ordering of circumstances, to me very disappointing,
I have never had the honor of
offering to you an assurance of my respect
as a good subject of the king, and one whom
the king has greatly honored. As you know,
my lord, I come and go hastily on the king’s
business. I only wish, and I judge his Majesty
would join in the wish, that my visits to
those parts were fewer. One is tempted,
preachers tell us, to think well of himself,
overmuch indeed, maybe, but I have been
wonderfully delivered from the snare of imagining
that I am a beloved person in the
west of Scotland.” As he spoke, a sudden
and almost roguish look of humor sprang
from his eyes and played across his face.
And he smiled pleasantly to Lady Jean, to
whom he was now introduced, and whose
hand he kissed.
“You will give your indulgence to a poor
soldier who must appear in this foolish trapping
of war, and whose time in these parts
is spent in the saddle rather than in a lady’s
rooms. I trust that it is well with the Lady
Cochrane, of whom I have often heard, and
127
whom I dared to hope I might have the privilege
of meeting.” And a second time the
same smile flickered over Claverhouse’s face,
and he seemed to challenge Jean for an
answer.
“My mother, Colonel Graham,” responded
Jean, with a careful choice of words, “does
not find herself able to receive you to-day as
we would have wished, and I fear she may be
confined to her room during your visit. It
will, I fear, be the greater loss to you that you
have to accept me in her place, but we will
try to give you such attention as we can, and
my good cousin here knows the castle as if
it were his own home.”
“Yes, and he has often spoken of our fair
hostess of to-day”––and Claverhouse led
Lady Jean to the table, where a meal was
spread––“and everyone has heard how wide
is the hospitality of Paisley Castle. Am I
too bold in asking whether Lord Ross and I
are the only guests, or whether we may not
expect to have a blessing on this generous
board from some minister of the kirk, even
perhaps from the worthy Mr. Henry Pollock?
I think, my lord, he favors you sometimes
with his company.” Again the smile returned,
but this time more searching and
ironical.
128
“Pollock? Henry? That name sounds
familiar. One of the leaders of the hillmen,
isn’t he, who were giving such trouble to the
government? I am not sure but he was in
this district not long ago, maybe a month
since. Last Monday, was it? Well, you will
know better than I do, Colonel. My Lady
Cochrane and I don’t perhaps quite agree in
this, but I can’t approve of any trafficking
with persons disaffected to the government.
Gone! what, did any man say that Pollock
was here?” And the earl shuffled in his
chair beneath Claverhouse’s mocking eyes.
“If you desire to know the truth,” Jean
Cochrane said, with severe dignity, “it were
better not to ask my lord, because many come
and go, and he sometimes forgets their names.
Mr. Henry Pollock was our guest three days
ago, as you are ours to-day, but next day he
left, and we know not where he is. If, as I
judge, you have surrounded the castle, I
think you might let your troopers go to their
dinner.”
“It is good advice,” laughed Claverhouse,
concealing his disappointment, and nodding
to Lord Ross, who rose and left the table, to
send off the soldiers. “For one thing, at any
rate, I have come a day behind the fair, and
I shall not have the pleasure this time of
129
hearing some gracious words from that eminent
saint, and introducing my unworthy
self to his notice. We have met once or twice
before, but at a distance, and he had no leisure
to speak with me. Some day I hope to
be more fortunate.”
“When you do meet, Colonel Graham,”
retorted Jean, stung by this mockery, for she
knew now that one of the ends of Claverhouse’s
visit was the arrest of Pollock, and
if it had not been the accident of her refusal,
Pollock would have been Claverhouse’s prisoner,
“you will be in the company of a good
man and a brave, who may not be of your
way, but who, I will say in any presence, is a
gentleman of Christ.”
“Whatever else befall him, Pollock is fortunate
in his advocate.” Claverhouse looked
curiously at Jean. “God knows I do not desire
to say aught against him. Had I found
him in Paisley Castle I should have done my
duty, and he would have done his. We were
together in the old days at St. Andrew’s, and
he was a good Cavalier then; he is a man of
family and of honor. Pardon me if I think
he has chosen the wrong side, and is doing
vast evil in stirring up ignorant people
against the government and breeding lawlessness.
But there, I desire not to debate,
130
and none grieves more over the divisions of
the day than an unhappy soldier who is sent
to settle them by the rough medicine of the
sword. Henry Pollock has chosen his side
and taken his risk: I have chosen mine and
taken my risk, too. If it be his lot when the
time comes he will die as a brave man should,
for there is no cowardice in Pollock, and
when my time comes, may heaven give me the
same grace. But I fear, Lady Jean, it is a
struggle unto life or death.” Claverhouse’s
face grew stern and sad, and he repeated,
“Unto life or death.”
Then suddenly his face relaxed into the
old polite, mocking smile as he turned to
Lord Dundonald. “The Lady Jean and I
have fallen upon much too serious talk, and
I take blame, my lord, that I have not been
inquiring for the welfare of your family. I
congratulate you on my Lord Cochrane, who
well sustains the fame of your house on all
its sides for turning out strong men and fair
women. Some day I hope Cochrane will ask
for a commission in his Majesty’s Regiment
of Horse and join his kinsman Ross under
my command. But what news have you from
Sir John? It came to my ears somehow that
he was travelling abroad; is that so, my lord?
Some one told me also that you had a letter
from him a week ago.”
131
“John! We have not seen him for a year.
He was in London, but he is not there now.
Yes, I seem to remember that he had some
business which has taken him out of the country
for a little. We hope he will soon return,
and when he knows that you have done us the
honor of coming beneath our roof he will be
very sorry that he was not here to meet you.”
The earl havered to the end of his breath and
his prevarications, like a clock which had run
down.
“It would have been more good fortune
than I expected from my information if I
had found Sir John here, for unless rumor be
a wilder liar than usual he is in Holland,
where there is a considerable gathering of
worthy Presbyterians at present, taking council
together, no doubt, for the good of their
country. When you are writing to Sir John,
would you of your courtesy give him a
message from me? Say that I know Holland
well, and that the climate is excellent
for Scotsmen––more healthy sometimes, indeed,
than their native air––and that some of
his well-wishers think that he might be happier
there than even in Paisley Castle. If
he wishes service in the army, I could recommend
him to the notice of my old fellow-officer
MacKay of Scourie, who is now, I hear,
132
a general in the Prince’s service. You will
be pleased to know, my lord, that the Rye
House Plot against his Majesty was a very
poor failure, and that all engaged in it, who
were caught, will be soundly trounced.”
“If anyone says that my son had anything
to do with that damnable proceeding, which
all loyal subjects must detest, then he is slandering
John, who is–––”
“Your son, my lord, and the brother of my
late Lord Cochrane cut off too soon. I am
curious to get any gossip from the low country.
Would it be too great a labor for you to
let your eyes rest again on Sir John’s letters,
and to learn whether he has anything to tell
about my old commander, his Highness of
Orange, or anything else that would satisfy
my poor curiosity. Burned them, have you?
Strange. If I had a son instead of being a
lonely man, I think his letters would be kept.
But you are a wise man, my lord, no doubt,
and I seem to be doomed to disappointment
to-day in everything except the most gracious
hospitality. Now, with your permission, Lady
Jean, I must go to see that those rascals of
mine are not making your good people in the
town drink the king’s health too deeply.”
133
For no less a time than fourteen days did
Claverhouse and his men remain in Paisley,
to the amazement of the district and the fierce
indignation of Lady Cochrane. During that
time the soldiers made sudden journeys in various
directions, but if they arrested any Covenanters
they were never brought to Paisley,
and although Lady Cochrane prophesied the
murder of the saints every day, no new atrocity
was laid to her guest’s charge. Once or
twice he went out with his men himself, but
he mostly contented himself with directing
their operations, and he occupied his time
with writing long despatches on the case of
Sir John Cochrane and the state of affairs
in Scotland. He was not so busy, however,
that he had no leisure for the duties of a
guest, and now that he had missed Pollock
and had found out all he wanted about Sir
John, he never came a thousand miles within
controversy. He was studiously courteous
134
to the servants at the castle, who had regarded
his coming with absolute terror; he
calmed and gentled the timid old earl, and
drew him out to tell stories of the days of
the Commonwealth, when one of Cromwell’s
troopers pulled the minister out of the pulpit
of the Abbey kirk, and held forth himself
on the sins both of Prelacy and Presbytery,
declaring that he was as good a priest
as any man. Claverhouse made no objection
when the minister of the Abbey, who had
taken the indulgence and was on good terms
with the government, but whom Lady Cochrane
detested and considered to be a mere
Gallio, came up to hold family worship in the
castle. He attended the service himself, and
explained that he always had prayers when
he was at home, and that he generally had a
chaplain with him. When he was not shut
up in his room reading or writing despatches,
he mingled freely with the family and suited
himself to each one’s taste with great tact
and good nature. It was not long since he
had returned from Court at London, where
he was now a popular and influential person,
and he had many good tales for young Lord
Cochrane, about hunting with the Duke of
York, cock-fighting and other sports in vogue,
and all the doings of the royal circle. For
135
Jean he had endless interesting gossip from
the capital about the great ladies and famous
men, and the amusements of the Court and
the varied life of London. But he was careful
never to tell any of those tales which
buzzed through the land about the ways of
Charles, but which were not fit for a maiden’s
ears. From time to time, also, as they walked
together in the pleasaunce of the castle, they
touched on deeper things, and Jean marked
that, although this man had lived a soldier’s
life, and had been much with people who were
far removed from Puritanism, he was free
from the coarseness of the day, and that, although
he might be capable of severity and
even cruelty, he was of more fastidious and
chivalrous temper than anyone else she had
met among the Covenanters except Henry
Pollock. Unconsciously Jean began to compare
the two men, and to weigh their types
of character. There was nothing to choose
between them in honor or in manliness,
though the one was a minister of the Evangel
and the other a colonel of his Majesty’s
Horse, but they were different. Pollock,
with all his narrowness of faith and extravagance
of action, was a saint, and no one
could say that of Claverhouse, even though
they might admit he was not the devil of the
136
Covenanting imagination. But John Graham
was more human: he might not see visions,
and there never came into his face that
light of the other world which she had seen
on Pollock’s, but he knew when a woman was
walking by his side, and his eyes caressed her.
His voice never had that indescribable accent
of eternity which thrilled Henry Pollock’s
hearers, and was to them as a message
from God, but Graham’s speech could
turn from grave and courteous mockery,
which was very taking in its way, to a gentle
deference and respectful appeal, which, from
a strong man with so dazzling a reputation,
was irresistible to a woman’s heart. Then,
no one could deny that his person was beautiful––a
rare thing to say of a man––or that
his manner was gracious, and Jean began to
admit to herself that if he set himself he
would be a successful lover. The very contradiction
of the man––with so graceful a form
and so high a spirit, with so evil a name for
persecution and so engaging a presence, with
such a high tone of authority among the men
in power and so modest a carriage towards
maidens––made him a captivating guest and
dangerous to women’s hearts. There was
also a natural sympathy between John Graham
and Jean Cochrane, because, though they
137
had been brought up under different traditions
and were on opposite sides, they were
both resolute, honest, independent, and loyal.
No word or hint of love passed between them
during those days, but Jean knew that for the
first time her heart had been touched, and
Claverhouse, who had seen all kinds of women
and had been indifferent to them all, and who
for the beauty of him had been tempted at
Court quite shamelessly and had remained
cold as ice, understood at last the attraction
of a maid for a man, and also realized that
Jean Cochrane was a fit mate for him because
her spirit was as high as his own.
They were trying days for Lady Cochrane
in her self-enforced seclusion, and her temper
was not improved by the news, brought
diligently to her by her waiting-maid, that
her daughter was doing her utmost to make
the persecutor’s time pass pleasantly. Her
mother had no suspicion at this point that
Jean was really wavering in loyalty to the
good cause, but as a woman with insight and
discernment she knew the danger to which
Jean was exposed, and blamed herself for her
own inconvenient pride. What if by way of
putting a slight on this arch enemy she were
to sacrifice her own child? It was impossible,
of course, that any daughter of hers should
138
ever allow her affections to be entangled by
the murderer of the saints, and Claverhouse
dared not, if he would, marry a Cochrane, for
he might as well throw up his commission and
join Henry Pollock at the next preaching on
the moors. But foolish ideas might come into
the girl’s head, and it was said that Claverhouse
could appear as an angel of light. It
might be as well to strengthen and safeguard
her daughter against the wiles of the wicked
one, so she summoned her to her room, and,
as her manner was, dealt with Jean in a
straightforward and faithful fashion. Lady
Cochrane had, however, learned that her
daughter could not be browbeaten or captured
by direct assault, but that, however thorough
might be her own mind and uncompromising
her will, she would have to walk warily
with Jean.
“It was an ill wind that blew that evil
man to this castle, and an ill work, I make no
doubt, he has been after in this district. He
came like a bloodhound to catch Henry Pollock,
and like a fox to get what news he could
about Sir John. What he lingers for his
master only knows, but it grieves me, lassie,
that ye have had the burden of him on your
shoulders. They are too light, though they
may be stronger than most, for such a weight;
139
I will not deny your spirit, but he, as the
Proverb goes, must have a lang spoon to sup
wi’ the deil. Has he spoken civilly”––and
Lady Cochrane eyed her daughter keenly––“or
has he been saying evil of our house and
the cause?”
“Claverhouse has said no evil of any man
that I can mind of, mother,” replied Jean
coldly; “and what he did say about Mr.
Henry Pollock would have rather pleased
than angered you. He does not discourse
without ceasing, as certain do when they
come to the castle, about the times and all
the black troubles; he seems to me rather to
avoid matters of debate, I suppose because
they would give offence. I doubt whether
you could quarrel with him if you met him.”
“What, then, is the substance of his talk––for,
if all stories be true, it is not much he
knows of anything but war and wicked people?
What has he for a godly maiden to
hear?”
“Nothing worth mentioning, mayhap”––and
Jean spoke with almost studied indifference––“what
is going on in London, and
how the great ladies of the Court are dressed,
and the clever things the king says, and how
the Duke of York loves sport, and suchlike.
140
It would please you to hear him, for ye have
seen the Court.”
“Once, Jean, and never again by God’s
mercy, for it is a spring of corruption from
which pours every evil work, where no man
can live clean, and no chaste woman should
ever go. The like of it has not been seen for
wickedness since the daughter of Herodias
danced before Herod and his lewd courtiers,
and obtained the head of John the Baptist
on a charger for her reward. Black shame
upon John Graham! Cruel he is, but I
thought he would not pollute any girl’s ears
with such immodest tales.” And Lady Cochrane
was beginning to lose control of herself.
“Colonel Graham said never a word which
it were unbecoming a maiden to hear, and
especially a daughter of Lady Cochrane.”
And Jean grew hot with indignation. “His
talk was about the ceremonies and the dresses;
there was no mention of any wrongdoings.
Nor was his speech always of London, for he
touched on many other things, and seemed to
me to have right thoughts, both of how men
should live and die. For example, he said,
that though Mr. Henry Pollock and he differ,
Mr. Henry was a good and brave gentleman.”
“Did he, indeed?” and Lady Cochrane
was very scornful. “Doubtless that was
141
very cunning on his part, and meant to tickle
your ears. But ye know, Jean, that if by
evil chance, or rather, let us say, a dark ordering
of the Lord, he had caught Mr. Henry
here, like a bird in the snare of the fowler,
he would have given him a short trial. If
ye had cared to look ye would have seen that
godly man shot in our own courtyard by six
of Claverhouse’s dragoons. Aye, and he
would have given the order in words as
smooth as butter, and come back to tell you
brave tales of the court ladies with a smile
upon his bonnie face. May God smite his
beauty with wasting and destruction!”
“Mother,” said Jean, flushing and throwing
back her head, “ye speak what ye believe
to be true, and many hard things are done in
these black days on both sides; but after I
have spoken with Claverhouse, I cannot
think that he would have any good man killed
in cold blood.”
“What does it matter, Jean, what you
think, for it is weel kent that a young lassie’s
eye is caught in the snare of a glancing eye
and a gallant’s lovelocks. Listen to me, and
I will tell you what three weeks ago this fair-spoken
and sweet-smiling cavalier did. He
was hunting for the hidden servants of the
Lord in the wild places of Ayrshire, and he
142
caught near his own house a faithful professor
of religion, on whose head a price was set,
and for whose blood those sons of Belial were
thirsting. Claverhouse demanded that he
should take the oath, which no honest man
can swear, and of which ye have often heard.
And when that brave heart would not, because
he counted his life not dear to him for
the Lord’s sake, Claverhouse gave him three
minutes to pray before he died. You are
hearing me, Jean, for I have not done?
“The martyr of the Lord prayed so earnestly
for his wife and children, for the downtrodden
Kirk of Scotland, and for his murderer,
that Graham ordered him to rise from
his knees, because his time was come. When
he rose he was made to stand upon the green
before his own house, with his wife and bairns
at the door, and Claverhouse commanded so
many of his men to fire upon him. Ah! ye
would have seen another Claverhouse than ye
know in that hour. But that is not all.
“His dragoons are ignorant and ungodly
men, accustomed to blood, but after hearing
that prayer their hearts were softened within
them and they refused to fire. So Graham
took a pistol from his saddle, and with his
own hands slew the martyr. Ye are hearing,
Jean, but there is more to follow. With her
143
husband lying dead before her eyes, Claverhouse
asked his wife what she thought of her
man now. That brave woman, made strong
in the hour of trial, wrapt her husband’s head
in a white cloth and took it on her lap, and
answered: ‘I have always honored him, but I
have never been so proud of him as this day.
Ye will have to answer to man and God for
this.’ This is what he gave back to her: ‘I
am not afraid of man, and God I will take
into my own hands.’ That is how he can deal
with women, Jean, when he is on his errands
of blood, and that is what he thinks of God.
But his day is coming, and the judgment of
the Lord will not tarry.”
“Ye will have to answer to man and God for this.” Page 143.
“My lady,” said Jean, who had grown very
pale, and whose face had hardened through
this ghastly story, “that, I am certain as I
live, is a lie. Colonel Graham might order
the Covenanter to be shot, and that were
dreadful enough. He would never have insulted
his wife after such a base manner––none
but a churl would do that, and Claverhouse
is not base-born.”
“He is base, girl, who does basely, it matters
not how fair he be or how pleasing in a
lady’s room. And I am not sure about his respect
for ladies and the high ways of what ye
would call his chivalry. Mayhap ye have not
144
heard the story of his courting––then I have
something else, and a lighter tale for your
ears, but whether it please you better I know
not. Though I begin to believe ye are easily
satisfied.” At the mention of courting Lady
Cochrane searched the face of her daughter,
but though Jean was startled she gave no sign.
“There be many tales which fly up and
down the land, and are passed from mouth to
mouth among the children of this world, and
some of them are not for a godly maiden’s
ears, since they are maistly concerned wi’
chambering and wantonness. But this thing
ye had better hear, and then ye will understand
what manner of man in his walk and
conversation we are harboring beneath our
roof. For a’ he look so grand and carries his
head so high, he has little gold in his purse,
but the black devil of greed is in his heart.
So, like the lave of the gallants that drink and
gamble and do waur things at the king’s
court, he has been hunting for some lass that
will bring him a tocher (dowry) and a title.
For this is what the men of his generation
are ever needing. Ye follow me, Jean? This
may be news to a country lass wha has not
been corrupted among the king’s ladies.
“Weel, it’s mair than three years ago our
brave gentleman scented his game, and ever
145
since has been trying to trap this misguided
lass, for like the rest o’ them, when he is not
persecuting the saints, he is ruining innocent
women soul and body. I would have you
understand that, daughter, and maybe ye will
walk with him less in the pleasaunce.” Both
women were standing, and Lady Cochrane
was watching Jean to see whether she had
touched her. Her daughter gave no sign except
that her face was hardening, and she
tapped the floor with her foot.
“Ye may not have heard of Helen Graham,
for she belongs to another world from
ours, and one I pray God ye may never see
the inside of, for a black clan to Scotland
have been the Grahams from the Marquis
himself, who was a traitor to the Covenant
and a scourge to Israel, to this bonnie kinsman
of his, who has the face of a woman and
the dress of a popinjay and the heart of a
fiend. Now, it happens that this fair lass,
whom I pity both for her blood and for her
company, for indeed she is a daughter of
Heth and hath the portion of her people, is
heiress to the Earl of Monteith, and whaso-ever
marries her will succeed to what money
there is and will be an earl in his own richt.
A fine prize for an avaricious and ambitious
worldling.
146
“For years, then, as I was saying, Claverhouse
has been scheming and plotting to
capture Helen Graham and to make himself
Earl o’ Monteith. It wasna sic easy work as
shootin’ God’s people on the hillside, and for
a while the sun didna shine on his game.
Some say the Marquis wanted her for himself,
and then John Graham of Claverhouse
would have to go behind like a little dog to
his master’s heel. Some say that her father
had some compunction in handing over his
daughter into sic cruel hands. Some say that
the lass had a lover of her own, though that
is neither here nor there with her folk. But
it’s no easy throwing a bloodhound off the
track, and now I hear he has gained his purpose,
and afore he left the Court and came
back to his evil trade in Scotland the contract
of marriage was settled, and ane o’ these days
we will be hearing that a Graham has married
a Graham, and that both o’ them have
gotten the portion that belongeth to the unrighteous.
Ye ken, Jean, that I have never
loved the foolish gossip which fills the minds
o’ idle folk when they had better be readin’
their Bibles and praying for their souls, but
I judged it expedient that ye should know
that Claverhouse is as gude as a married
man.”
147
“If he were not,” said Jean, looking
steadily at her mother, and drawing herself
up to her full height, “there is little
danger he would come to Paisley Castle for
his love, or find a bride in my Lady Cochrane’s
daughter. Ye have given me fair warning
and have used very plain speech, but I was
wondering with myself all the time”––and
then as her mother waited and questioned
her by a look––“whether miscalling a man
black with the shameful lies of his enemies is
not the surest way to turn the heart of a
woman towards him. But doubtless ye ken
best.” Without further speech Jean left her
mother’s room, who felt that she would have
succeeded better if her daughter had been less
like herself.
Jean gave, truth to tell, little heed to the
stories of Claverhouse’s savagery, partly because
rough deeds were being done on both
sides, and they were not so much horrified in
the West Country of that time at the shooting
of a man as we are in our delicate days;
partly, also, because she had been fed on those
horrors for years, and had learned to regard
Claverhouse and the other Royalist officers
as men capable of any atrocity. Gradually
the dramatic stories had grown stale and
lost their bite, and when she noticed that
148
with every new telling it was necessary to
strengthen the horrors, Jean had begun to
regard them as works of political fiction.
But this was another story about Claverhouse’s
engagement to Helen Graham. Jean
would not admit to herself, even in her own
room or in her own heart, that she was in
love with Graham, and she was ready to say
to herself that no marriage could be more
preposterous than between a Cochrane and a
Graham. It did not really matter to her
whether he had been engaged or was going
to be engaged to one Graham or twenty Grahams.
She had never seen him till a few
days ago, and very likely, having done all he
wanted, he would never come to Paisley
Castle again. Their lives had touched just
for a space, and then would run forever
afterwards apart. They had passed some
pleasant hours together, and she would ever
remember his face; perhaps he might sometimes
recall hers. So the little play would
end without ill being done to her or him.
Still, as she knew her mother was not overscrupulous,
and any stick was good enough
wherewith to beat Claverhouse, she would
like to know, if only to gratify a woman’s
curiosity, whether Claverhouse was really
going to marry this kinswoman of his, and, in
149
passing, whether he was the mercenary adventurer
of her mother’s description.
This was the reason of a friendly duel between
that vivacious woman Kirsty Howieson,
Jean Cochrane’s maid and humble friend,
and that hard-headed and far-seeing man of
Angus, Jock Grimond, Claverhouse’s servant
and only too loyal clansman.
“It’s no true every time ‘Like master like
man’”––and Kirsty made a bold opening, as
was the way of her class––“for I never saw
a woman wi’ a bonnier face than Claverhouse,
and, my certes, mony a lass would give ten
years o’ her life, aye, and mair, for his brown
curls and his glancing een. I’m judgin’ there
have been sair hearts for him amang the fair
Court ladies.”
“Ye may weel say that, Kirsty,” answered
Jock; “if Providence had been pleased to
give ye a coontinance half as winsome, nae
doot ye would have been married afore this,
my lass. As for him, the women just rin
after Claverhouse in flooks. It doesna matter
whether it be Holland or whether it be
London, whether it be duchesses at Whitehall
or merchants’ daughters at Dundee, he
could have married a hundred times over wi’
money and rank and beauty and power.
Lord’s sake! the opportunities he has had,
150
and the risks he has run, it’s been a merciful
thing he had me by his side to be, if I may say
it, a guide and a protector.”
“If the Almichty hasna done muckle for
your face, Jock, He’s given you a grand conceit
o’ yoursel’, and that must be a rael comfort.
I wish I’d a share o’ it. So you have
preserved your maister safe till this day, and
he’s still gaeing aboot heart-free and hand-free.”
“Na, Kirsty”––and Grimond looked
shrewdly at her––“I’ll no say that Claverhouse
isna bound to marry some day or ither,
and, of course, in his posseetion it behove
him to find a lady of his ain rank and his
ain creed. Noo, what I’m tellin’ ye is strictly
between oorsel’s, and ye’re no to mention it
even to your ain mistress. Claverhouse is
contracted in marriage to Miss Helen Graham,
the daughter of Sir James Graham,
his own uncle, and the heiress to the Earl of
Monteith. Ye see, Miss Helen is his kinswoman,
and she brings him an earldom in
her lap. Besides that she’s verra takin’ in
her appearance and manner, and I needna
say just hates a Covenanter as she would a
brock (badger). It’s a maist suitable match
every way ye look at it, and it has my entire
approbation. But no a word aboot this, mind
151
ye, Kirsty––though I was juist thinkin’
this afternoon of recommendin’ Claverhouse
to let this contract be known. He’s an honorable
man, is the laird, and, by ordinary,
weel-livin’; but there’s nae doot he is awfu’
temptit by women, and I wouldna like to see
their hearts broken.”
“A word in season to my Lady Jean, if I’m
no sair mistaken”––and Jock chuckled to
himself when Kirsty had gone––“and a
warning to the laird micht no be amiss. It
would be fine business for a Graham o’
Claverhouse to marry a Covenantin’ fanatic
and the daughter o’ sic a mither. Dod! it
would be fair ruin for his career, and misery
for himsel’. I’ll no deny her looks, but I’ll
guarantee she has her mither’s temper.
What would Claverhouse have done without
me––though I wouldna say that to onybody
except mysel’––he would have been just an
object––aye, aye, just a fair object.”
As Grimond had communicated the engagement
of Claverhouse to Helen Graham under
the form of a secret, he was perfectly certain
that Kirsty would tell it that evening to her
mistress and in the end to the whole castle.
But he thought it wise to reinforce the resolution
of the other side, and when he waited
152
on his master that evening he laid himself
out for instruction.
“Ye would have laughed hearty, Mr. John,
if you had heard the officers over their wine
this afternoon in the town. Lord Ross wasna
there, and so they had the freedom o’ their
tongues, and if Sir Adam Blair wasna holdin’
out that you had fallen in love wi’ Lady Jean,
and the next thing they would hear would be
a marriage that would astonish Scotland.
Earleshall nearly went mad, and said that if
ye did that you would be fairly bewitched,
and that you might as well join the Covenanters.
I tell ye, laird, they nearly quarrelled
over it, and I am telt they got so thirsty
that they drank fourteen bottles o’ claret to
five o’ them besides what they had before. Ye
will excuse me mentionin’ this, for it’s no
for me to tell you what the gentlemen speak
aboot, but I thought a bit o’ daffin’ (amusement)
micht lichten ye after the day’s work.”
“It is no concern of mine what the officers
say between themselves, and I’ve told you before,
Grimond, that you are not to bring any
idle tales you pick up to my ears. You’ve
done this more than once, and I lay it on you
not to do it again.”
“Surely, Mr. John, surely. I ken it’s no
becoming and I’ll no give ye cause to complain
153
again. But as sure as death, when I
heard them saying it as I took in your message
to Earleshall I nearly dropped on the
floor, I was that amused. Claverhouse married
to a Covenanter! It was verra takin’.
“Na, na, Mr. John, I kent better than that,
but I’m no just comfortable in my mind sae
lang as ye are in Paisley Castle and in the
company o’ Lady Jean. Her mither is an
able besom, and her young ladyship is verra
deep. What I’m hearin’ on the ither side o’
the hedge is that she’s trying to get round ye
so as to get a pardon for Sir John, and to let
him come home from Holland. No, Claverhouse,
ye maunna be angry wi’ me, for I’ve
waited on ye longer than ye mind, and I
canna help bein’ anxious. Ye are a grand
soldier, and ye’ve been a fine adviser to the
government. There’s no mony things ye’re
no fit for, Mr. John, but the women are cunning,
and have aye made a fule o’ the men
since Eve led Adam aff the straicht and made
sic a mishanter o’ the hale race. They say
doon stairs that Lady Jean is getting roond
ye fine, and that if it wasna that her family
wanted something from you, you would never
have had a blink o’ her, ony mair than her
auld jade o’ a mither. For a hypocrite give
154
me a Covenanter, and, of course, the higher
they are the cleverer.
“Just ae word more, Claverhouse, and I
pray ye no to be angry, for there’s naebody
luves ye better than Jock Grimond. I hear
things ye canna hear, and I see things ye
canna see. Naebody would tell you that Lady
Jean and Pollock, the Covenantin’ minister,
are as gude as man and wife. They may no
be married yet, but they will be as sune as it’s
safe, and that’s how he comes here so often.
She has a good reason to speak ye fair, laird,
and she has a souple tongue and a beguilin’
way, juist a Delilah. Laird, as sure as I’m a
livin’ man this is a hoose o’ deceit, and we
are encompassed wi’ fausehood as wi’ a garment.”
And although Claverhouse’s rebuke
was hot, Grimond felt that he had not suffered
in vain.
155
A month had passed before Claverhouse
returned to Paisley, and this time he made
his headquarters in the town, and did not accept
the hospitality of the castle, excusing
himself on the ground of his many and sudden
journeys. His real reason was that he
thought it better to keep away, both for his
own sake and that of Jean Cochrane. During
his lonely rides he had time to examine
the state of his feelings, and he found himself
more deeply affected than he thought;
indeed he confessed to himself that if he
were to marry he should prefer Jean to any
other woman he had ever met. But he remembered
her ancestry, especially her mother,
and her creed, which was the opposite of his,
and he knew that either she would not marry
him because he was the chief opponent of her
cause, or if he succeeded in winning her, he
would most likely be discredited at Court by
156
this suspicious marriage. It was better not
to see her, or to run any further risks. He
had made many sacrifices––all his life was
to be sacrificed for his cause––and this would
only be one more. He tried also to think the
matter out from her side, and although he
hated to think that she was a traitress trying
to ensnare him for her own ends, yet it might
be that her family were making a tool of her
to seduce him from the path of duty, and although
he doubted whether she was betrothed
to Pollock, yet it might be true, and he certainly
was not going to be Pollock’s unsuccessful
rival. Altogether, it was expedient
that they should not see one another, and
Claverhouse contented himself with sending
a courteous message by Lord Ross to the earl
and Lady Jean, and busied himself with his
public and by no means agreeable task of
Covenanter-hunting. As, however, he had
received the very thoughtful and generous
hospitality of the castle on his last visit, and
as Lord Ross was constantly saying that the
earl would like to see him, he determined to
call on the afternoon before his departure.
Lady Cochrane, as usual, did not appear, and
neither did her daughter, and after a futile
conversation with Dundonald, who seemed
feebler than ever, Claverhouse left, and had it
157
not been for a sudden whim, as he was going
through the courtyard, he had never seen Jean
Cochrane again, and many things would not
have happened. But there was a way of
reaching the town through the pleasaunce,
and under the attraction of past hours spent
among its trees Claverhouse turned aside, and
walking down one of its grass walks, and
thinking of an evening in that place with
Jean, he came suddenly upon her on her favorite
seat beneath a spreading beech.
“I crave your pardon, my Lady Jean,”
said Claverhouse, recovering himself after
an instant’s discomposure, “for this intrusion
upon your chosen place and your meditation.
My excuse is the peace of the garden
after the wildness of the moors, but I did not
hope to find so good company. My success in
Paisley Castle has been greater than among
the moss-hags.”
“It is a brave work, Colonel Graham, to
hunt unarmed peasants”––and for the first
time Claverhouse caught the ironical note in
Jean’s speech, and knew that for some reason
she was nettled with him––“and it seems to
bring little glory. Though, the story did come
to our ears, it sometimes brought risk, and––perhaps
it was a lie of the Covenanters––once
158
ended in the defeat of his Majesty’s Horse. I
seem to forget the name of the place.”
“Yes,” replied Claverhouse with great
good humor, “the rascals had the better of
us at Drumclog. They might have the same
to-morrow again, for the bogs are not good
ground for cavalry, and fanatics are dour
fighters.”
“It was Henry Pollock ye were after this
time, we hear, and ye followed him hard, but
ye have not got him. It was a sair pity that
you did not come a day sooner to the castle,
and then you could have captured him without
danger.” And Lady Jean mocked him
openly. “Ye would have tied his hands behind
his back and his feet below the horse’s
belly, and taken him to Edinburgh with a
hundred of his Majesty’s Horse before him
and a hundred behind to keep him safe; ye
would have been a proud man, Colonel Graham,
when ye came and presented the prisoner
to your masters. May I crave of you
the right word, for I am only a woman of the
country? Would Mr. Henry Pollock have
been a prisoner of war––of war?” she repeated
with an accent and look of vast contempt.
Never had Claverhouse admired her more
than at that moment, for the scorn on her face
159
became her well, and he concluded that it
must spring from one of two causes. Most
likely, after all, Pollock was her lover.
“‘Tis not possible, my Lady Jean,” softening
his accent till it was as smooth as velvet,
and looking at the girl through half-closed
eyes, “to please everyone to whom he
owes duty in this poor world. If I had been
successful for my master his Majesty the
King––I cannot remember the name of any
other master––then I would have arrested a
rebel and a maker of strife in the land, and
doubtless he would have suffered his just
punishment. That would have been my part
towards the king and towards Mr. Henry
Pollock, too, and therein have I for the time
failed. To-morrow, Lady Jean, I may succeed.”
“Perhaps,” she said, looking at him from
a height, “and perhaps not. And to whom
else do you owe a duty, and have you filled it
better?”
“I owe a service to a most gracious hostess,
and that is to please her in every way I can.
Whether by my will or not, I have surely
given you satisfaction by allowing Mr. Henry
Pollock to escape, instead of bringing him
tied with ropes to Paisley Castle. So far as
my information goes you may sleep quietly
160
to-night, for he is safe in some rebel’s house.
Yet I am sorry from my heart,” said Claverhouse,
“and I am sorry for your sake, since
I make no doubt he will die some day soon,
either on the hill or on the scaffold.”
“For my sake?” said Jean, looking at him
in amazement. “What have I to do with him
more than other women?”
“If I have touched upon a secret thing
which ought not to be spoken of, I ask your
pardon upon my bended knees. But I was
told, it seemed to me from a sure quarter,
that there was some love passage between you
and Henry Pollock, and that indeed you were
betrothed for marriage.”
As Claverhouse spoke the red blood flowed
over Jean’s face and ebbed as quickly. She
looked at Claverhouse steadily, and answered
him in a quiet and intense voice, which quivered
with emotion.
“Ye were told wrong, then, Claverhouse,
for I have never been betrothed to any man,
and I shall never be the wife of Henry Pollock.
I am not worthy, for he is a saint, and
God knows I am not that nor ever likely to
be, but only a woman. But I tell you, face
to face, that I respect him, suffering for his
religion more than those who pursue him
unto his death. And when he dies, for his
161
testimony, he will have greater honor than
those who have murdered him. But they did
me too much grace who betrothed me to
Henry Pollock; if I am ever married it will
be to more ordinary flesh and blood, and I
doubt me”––here her mood changed, and the
tension relaxing, she smiled on Claverhouse––“whether
it will be to any Covenanter.”
“Lady Jean,” said Claverhouse, with a
new light breaking on him, for he began to
suspect another cause of her anger, “it concerns
me to see you standing while there is
this fair seat, and, with your leave, may I sit
beside you? Can you give me a few minutes
of your time before we part––I to go on my
way and you on yours. I hope mine will not
bring me again to Paisley Castle, where I am,
as the hillmen would say, ‘a stumbling-block
and an offence.’” Jean, glancing quickly at
him, saw that Claverhouse was not mocking,
but speaking with a note of sad sincerity.
“When you said a brief while ago that
mine was work without glory, ye said truly.
But consider that in this confused and dark
world, in which we grope our way like shepherds
in a mist, we have to do what lies to our
hand, and ask no questions––and the weariness
of it is that in the darkness we strike
ane another. We know not which be right,
162
and shall not know till the day breaks: we
maun just do our duty, and mine, by every
drop of my blood, is to the king and the
king’s side. But mind ye, Lady Jean, it will
not be always through the moss-hags––chasing
shepherds, ploughmen and sic-like; by
and by it will be on the battle-field, when this
great quarrel is settled in Scotland. May the
day not be far off, and may the richt side win.”
As Claverhouse spoke he leaned back in the
corner of the seat and looked into the far distance,
while his face lost its changing expressions
of cynicism, severity, gracious courtesy
and keen scrutiny, and showed a nobility
which Jean had never seen before. She
noticed how it invested his somewhat effeminate
beauty with manliness and dignity.
“That is true”––and Jean’s voice grew
gentler––“nane kens that better than myself,
for nane has been more tossed in mind
than I have been. Ilka man, and also woman,
must walk the road as they see it before them,
and do their part till the end comes; but the
roads cross terribly on the muirs in the West
Country. If I was uncivil a minute syne I
crave your pardon, for that was not my mind.
But if rumor be true it matters not to you
what any man says, far less my Lady Cochrane’s
163
daughter, for ye were made to gang
yir ain gait.”
“Ye are wrong there, Lady Jean, far
wrong,” Claverhouse suddenly turned round
and looked at her with a new countenance.
“I will not deny that I am made to be careless
about the strife of tongues, and to give
little heed whether the world condemns or
approves if I do my devoir rightly to my
lord the king. But it would touch me to
the heart what you thought of me. They say
that a woman knows if a man loves her, even
though his love be sudden and unlikely, and
if that be so, then surely you have seen, as
we walked in this pleasaunce those fair evenings,
that I have loved you from the moment
I saw you in the hall that day. Confess it,
Jean, if that be not so. I, with what I heard
of Pollock, was bound in honor to be silent.”
“Was Pollock the only bond of honor?”
and Jean blazed on him with sudden fury.
“Is there no other tie that should keep you
from speaking of love to me and offering me
insult in my father’s house? Is this the chivalry
of a Royalist, and am I, Jean Cochrane,
to be treated like a light lady of the Court,
or some poor lass of the countryside ye can
play with at your leisure? Pleased by your
164
notice and then flung aside like a flower ye
wore till it withered.”
“Before God, what do ye mean by those
words?” They were both standing now, and
Graham’s face was white as death. “Is the
love of John Graham of Claverhouse a dishonor?”
“It is, and so is the love of any man if he
be pledged to another woman. Though we
go not to Court, think you I have not heard
of Helen Graham, the heiress of Monteith,
and your courting of her––where, the story
goes, ye have been more successful than catching
ministers of the kirk? Ye would play
with me! I thank God my brother lives, and
they say he is no mean swordsman.”
“If it were as you believe, my lady, and I
had spoken of love to you when I was betrothed
to another woman, then ye did well
and worthy of your blood to be angry, and
my Lord Cochrane’s sword, if it had found
its way to my heart, had rid the world of a
rascal. Rumor is often wrong, and it has
told you false this time. I deny not, since I am
on my confession, that I desired to wed Helen
Graham, and I will also say freely, though
it also be to my shame, that I desired to win
her, not only because she was a Graham and a
gracious maiden, but because I should obtain
165
rank and power, for I have ever hungered for
both, that with them I might serve my cause.
My suit did not prosper, so that we were never
betrothed, and now I hear she is to be married
to Captain Rawdon, the nephew of my
Lord Conway. I would have married Helen
Graham in her smock if need be, though I
say again I craved that title, and I would
have been a faithful husband to her. But I
have never loved her, nor any other woman
before. Love, Jean”––he went on, and they
both unconsciously had seated themselves a
little apart––“is like the wind spoken of in
the Holy Gospel. It bloweth where it listeth,
and is not to be explained by reasons. In
my coming and going to Court I have seen
many fair women, and some of them have
smiled on me and tried to take me by the lure
of their eyes, but none has ever been so bonnie
to me as you, Jean, and your hair of burnished
gold. Doubtless I have met holier
women than you, though my way has not
lain much among the saints, but though one
should show me a hundred faults in you, ye
are to me to-day the best, and I declare if ye
had sinned I would love you for your sins
only less than for your virtues. I love you
as a man should love a woman: altogether,
your fair body from the crown of your head
166
to the sole of your foot, your hair, your eyes,
your mouth, your hands, the way you hold
your head, the way you walk, your white
teeth when you smile, and the dimple on your
cheek. Yourself, too, the Jean within that
body, with your courage, your pride, your
scorn, your temper, your fierce desires, your
fiery jealousies, your changing moods. And
your passion, with its demands, with its surrenders,
with its caresses, with its pain. You,
Jean Cochrane, as you are and as you shall
be, with all my heart and with all my body,
with all my loyalty, next to that I give my
king, I love you, Jean.” He leaned towards
her as he spoke, and all the passion that was
hidden behind his girl face and Court manner––the
passion that had made him the most
daring of soldiers, and was to make him the
most successful of leaders––poured from his
eyes, from his lips, from his whole self, like
a hot stream, enveloping, overwhelming and
captivating her. Strong as she was in will
and character, she could not speak nor move,
but only looked at him, with eyes wide open,
from the midst of the wealth of her golden
hair.
She could not speak nor move, but only looked at him. Page 166.
“Do I not know the sacrifice I am asking
if you should consent to be my wife? Jean, I
will tell you true: not for my love even and
167
your bonnie self will I lie or palter with my
faith. You will have to come to me, I will
not go to you; you will have to break with
the Covenant, leave your father’s house and
face your mother’s anger, and be denounced
by the godly, up and down the land, because
ye married the man of blood and the persecutor
of the saints. I will not change, ye
understand that? No, not for the warm, soft
clasp of your white arms round my neck; no,
not though ye tie me with the meshes of your
shining hair. I judge that ye will not be a
temptress, but I give you warning I am
no Sampson, in his weakness to a woman’s
witchery, when it comes to my faith and my
duty. I will love you night and day as a man
loveth a woman, but I will do what I am told
to do, even though it be against your own
people, till the evil days be over. And it
may be, Jean, that I shall have to lead a hopeless
cause. Ye must be willing to give me
to death without a grudge, and send me with
a kiss to serve the king.
“Can you do this”––and now his voice
sank almost to a whisper, and he stretched
his hands towards her––“for the sake of
love, for love’s sake only, for the sight of
my face, for the touch of my lips, for the
clasp of my arms, for the service of my heart,
168
for myself? If ye should, I will be a true
man to you, Jean, till death us do part. I
have not been better than other men, but
women have never made me play the fool,
and even your own folk, who hate me, will
tell you that I have been a clean liver. And
now I will never touch or look on any other
woman in the way of love save you. If I
have to leave your side to serve the king, I
will return when the work is done, and all
the time I am away my love will be returning
to you. If you be not in my empty arms,
you shall ever be in my heart; if I win honor
or wealth, it will now be for you. If I can
shelter you from sorrows and trouble, I will
do so with my life, and if I die my last
thought, after the cause, will be of you, my
lady and my love.
“Jean Cochrane, can you trust yourself to
me; will you be the wife of John Graham of
Claverhouse?”
They had risen as by an instinct, and were
facing one another where the light of the
setting sun fell softly upon them through the
fretted greenery of the beech tree.
“For life, John Graham, and for death,”
and as she said “death” he clasped her in his
arms. The brown hair mingled with the gold,
they looked into one another’s eyes, and their
169
lips met in a long, passionate kiss, renewed
again and again, as if their souls had flowed
together. Then she disentangled herself and
stood a pace away, and laying her hands upon
his shoulders and looking steadfastly at him,
she said: “Whither thou goest I will go, and
where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people
shall be my people, and thy God my God.”
The sooner they were married the better
pleased John Graham and Jean Cochrane
would be, for life in Paisley Castle could not
be a paradise for Jean after that betrothal.
Three weeks later Claverhouse rode down one
Saturday from Edinburgh to Paisley against
his marriage day on the following Tuesday.
His love for Jean had steadily grown during
those days, and now was in a white
heat of anticipation, for she was no nun, but
a woman to stir a man’s senses. Yet there
were many things to chasten and keep him
sober. No sooner was it known that he was
to marry Lady Cochrane’s daughter and the
granddaughter of Lord Cassillis than his
rivals in the high places of Scotland and at
Whitehall did their best to injure him, setting
abroad stories that he was no longer
loyal, and that in future he would play into
the hands of the enemy. His young wife
would certainly get round him and shake his
170
integrity, and it would not be wise to trust
Claverhouse with secrets of grave affairs. It
was prophesied that this amazing and incongruous
marriage, the mating of opposites,
would only work ruin to his career, and that
indeed this was the beginning of the end for
Claverhouse. Lady Cochrane, raging like a
fiend in Paisley Castle, did not fail, in the
interludes of invective against her daughter
for disgracing their good name and giving
herself into the hands of the cruelest enemy
of the kirk, to remind Jean also that she was
doing the worst injury to the man she professed
to love, and that in the end Claverhouse
would be twice damned––for his sin
against the Covenanters and for his disloyalty
to his own cause. Jean was, of all
women, most capable of holding her own
even with her masterful mother, and Claverhouse
was perfectly confident that neither
Lady Cochrane nor her family would be able
to shake Jean’s fidelity. But there were
times, and they were her bitterest hours,
when Jean was not sure whether she had not
done selfishly and was not going to satisfy
her love at the expense of her lover. On his
part, he could not help being anxious, for it
seemed as if every man of his own party
had turned his hand against him. With all
171
his severity, Claverhouse had a just mind,
and he offended Queensberry by protesting
against the severity of the law; while the
Duke of Perth, an unprincipled vagabond,
ready to play traitor to either king or religion,
hated Claverhouse because he was an
honorable man. Claverhouse thought it necessary
to write to the Duke of York, explaining
the circumstances of his marriage and
assuring him of his continued loyalty, and to
the Duke of Hamilton, whose daughter was
to be married to young Lord Cochrane, testifying
to the integrity of Jean. “For the
young lady herself, I shall answer for her.
Had she been right principled she would
never in despyt of her mother and relations
made choyse of a persecutor, as they call me.
So, whoever think to misrepresent me on
that head will find themselves mistaken; for
both the king and the church’s interest, dryve
as fast as they think fit, they will never see
me behind.”
Lord Dundonald himself was pleased because
the marriage secured Claverhouse’s influence,
and so were his personal friends,
such as Lord Ross, who knew and admired
Jean; Claverhouse could not hide from himself,
however, that the world judged the marriage
an irreparable mistake, and Grimond,
172
so far as he dared––but he had now to be very
careful––rubbed salt into the wound. All
the omens were against them, and when on
the Sunday Claverhouse sat beside his bride
in the Abbey church, the people gave them
a cold countenance, and as they went up the
street true Presbyterians turned their faces
from Claverhouse. The marriage service
was performed in the gallery of the castle,
and the minister officiating was one who had
taken the indulgence and was avoided by the
stricter people of the kirk. The contract
was signed by Lord Dundonald and the old
countess with weak and feeble hands, but
the bride and bridegroom placed their names
with strong and unhesitating characters.
Lord Ross stood beside his commanding officer
as best man, and young Lord Cochrane
was also present, full of good-will and sympathy,
for was he not himself about to marry
the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton? But
neither Dundonald’s weakly approval nor
the gayety of the young men could lift the
shadow that fell within and without, both in
the gallery and in the courtyard of the castle,
upon the marriage of Claverhouse and Jean
Cochrane. News had come two days before
that there had been a rising among the Covenanters,
and Claverhouse was ordered to pursue
173
them with his cavalry. His regiment was
in the district, and while the service was
going on in the castle, his horse was saddled
in the courtyard, and a guard of troopers
were making ready to start. The sound of
the champing of bits and the clinking of
spurs came up through the quiet summer air
and mingled with the prayer of the minister.
Lady Cochrane was not supposed to be present,
but when the minister asked if anyone
could show just cause why this marriage
should not be performed, she appeared suddenly
from an alcove where she had been
sheltered behind the servants. Stepping forward,
she said, with an unfaltering voice,
vibrant with solemn indignation, “In the
name of God and in my own, I, the mother
of Jean Cochrane, forbid this marriage, because
she is marrying against my will, and
joining herself to the persecutor of God’s
people; because she is turning herself against
her father’s house and forsaking the faith
of her father’s God.” The minister paused
for a moment, for he was a quiet man and
stood in awe of Lady Cochrane; he looked
anxiously at the bride and bridegroom. “I
have made my choice,” said Jean, “and I
adhere to it with my mind and heart,” and
Claverhouse, with a smile and bow, bade the
174
minister do his duty. When they were married
there was a moment’s stillness, during
which the bridegroom kissed the bride, and
then Lady Cochrane spoke again. “Ye have
gone your own way and done your own will,
John Graham and Jean Cochrane, and the
curse of God’s kirk and of a mother goes
with you. The veil is lifted from before my
eyes, and I prophesy that neither the bridegroom
nor the bride will die in their beds.
There are those here present who will witness
one day that I have spoken true.”
Claverhouse led his bride to the wing of
the castle, where she lived, and from which
she could look down on the courtyard. At the
door of her room he kissed her again and
bade her good-by. “This is what ye have
got, Jean, by marrying me,” and his smile
was dashed with sadness. Two minutes later
he rode out from the courtyard of the castle
to hunt the people of Lady Cochrane’s faith,
while her daughter and his bride waved him
God speed from her window.
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BOOK III — CHAPTER I — ONE FEARLESS MAN — CHAPTER II — THE CRISIS — CHAPTER III — THE LAST BLOW — CHAPTER IV — THOU ALSO FALSE
Above the town of Dundee, and built to
command the place, stood, at the date of our
tale, Dudhope Castle, a good specimen of
Scots architecture, which in its severity and
strength is, like architecture everywhere,
the physical incarnation of national creed
and character. The hardness of Dudhope
was softened in those days by what was not
usual in the case of keeps and other warlike
buildings, for Dudhope was set in the midst
of sloping fields where cattle browsed, and
had also round it rising plantations of wood.
Before the castle there was a terrace, and
from it one looked down upon the little town,
nestling under the shelter of the castle, and
across the Firth of Tay to Fifeshire, where
so much Scots history had been made. It
was to Dudhope Claverhouse brought his
bride, after that stormy honeymoon which
she had to spend under the shadow of her
mother’s hot displeasure in Paisley Castle,
176
and he occupied with the weary hunt of Covenanters
up and down the West Country.
Their wedding day was the 10th of June, but
it was not till August that Claverhouse and
his wife came home to Dudhope. Since then
four years have passed, during which the
monotony of his duty in hunting Covenanters
had been relieved by the office of Provost of
Dundee, in which it is said he ruled severely,
and the sameness of Jean’s life at Dudhope by
a visit to the Court of London, where she produced
a vast impression, and was said to have
been adored in the highest quarter. There
were hours when she felt very lonely, although
she would not have confessed this,
being a woman of invincible spirit and fortified
by the courage of her love. She never
knew when her husband would be called away
for one of his hunts, and though there were
many Loyalist families in Forfarshire, it was
not a time for easy social intercourse, and
Jean was conscious that the Carnegies and
the rest of them of the old Cavalier stock
looked askance at her, and suspected the
black Covenanting taint in her blood. Claverhouse,
like a faithful gentleman, had done
his best to conceal from her the injury which
his marriage had done him, but she knew that
his cunning and bitter enemy, the Duke of
177
Queensberry, had constantly insinuated into
the mind of the Duke of York and various
high personages in London that no one who
had married Lady Cochrane’s daughter could,
in the nature of things, be perfectly loyal. It
was really for this love that he had lost the
post of commander-in-chief in Scotland, to
which he was distinctly entitled, and had experienced
the insult of having his name removed
from the Scots Council. It might be
her imagination, but it seemed as if his fellow
officers and other friends, whom she met
from time to time, were not at ease with her.
She was angry when they refrained from
their customary frank expressions about her
mother’s party, just as she would have been
angry if they had said the things they were
accustomed to say in her presence. Claverhouse
assured her on those happy days when
he was living at Dudhope, and when they
could be lovers among the woods there, as
they had been in the pleasaunce at Paisley
Castle, that he never regretted his choice, and
that she was the inspiration of his life. It
was pleasant to hear him repeat his love
vows, with a passion as hot and words as
moving as in the days of their courtship, and
the very contrast between his unbending
severity as a soldier and his grace as a lover
178
made him the more fascinating to a woman
who was herself of the lioness breed. All the
same, she could not forget that Claverhouse
would have done better for himself if he had
married into one of the great Scots houses of
his own party––and there were few in which
he would not have been welcome––and that
indeed he could not have done much worse
for his future than in marrying her. It was
a day of keen rivalry among the Royalists,
and a more unprincipled and disreputable
gang than the king’s Scots ministers could
not be found in any land; indeed Claverhouse
was the only man of honor amongst them.
His battle to hold his own and achieve his
legitimate ambition was very hard, and certainly
he needed no handicap. Jean Graham
was haunted with the reflection that Claverhouse’s
wife, instead of being a help, was a
hindrance to her husband, and that if it were
not for the burden of her Covenanting name,
he would have climbed easily to the highest
place. Nor could she relish the change of attitude
of the common people towards her,
and the difference in atmosphere between
Paisley and Dundee. Once she had been accustomed
to receive a respectful, though it
might be awkward, salutation from the dour
West Country folk, and to know that, though
179
in her heart she was not in sympathy with
them, the people in the town, where her
mother reigned supreme, felt kindly towards
her, as the daughter of that godly Covenanting
lady. In Dundee, where the ordinary
people sided with the Presbyterians and only
the minority were with the Bishops, men
turned away their faces when she passed
through the place, and the women cried
“Bloody Claverse!” as she passed. She
knew without any word of abuse that both
she and her husband were bitterly hated, because
he was judged a persecutor and she a
renegade. They were two of the proudest
people in Scotland, but although Claverhouse
gave no sign that he cared for the people’s
loathing, she often suspected that he felt it,
being a true Scots gentleman, and although
Jean pretended to despise Covenanting fanaticism,
she would rather have been loved by
the folk round her than hated. While she declared
to Graham that her deliverance from
her mother’s party, with their sermons, their
denunciations, their narrowness and that
horrible Covenant, had been a passage from
bondage to liberty, there were times, as she
paced the terrace alone and looked out on the
gray sea of the east coast, when the contradictory
circumstances of her life beset her
180
and she was troubled. When she was forced
to listen to the interminable harangues of
hill preachers, sheltering for a night in the
castle, and day by day was resisting the
domination of her mother, her mind rose in
revolt against the Presbyterians and all their
ways. When she was among men who spoke
of those hillmen as if they were vermin to be
trapped, and as if no one had breeding or
honor or intelligence or sincerity except the
Cavaliers, she was again goaded into opposition.
Jean had made her choice both of her
man and of her cause––for they went together––with
her eyes open, and she was not
a woman to change again, nor to vex herself
with vain regrets. It was rather her nature
to decide once for all, and then to throw herself
without reserve into her cause, and to
follow without question her man through
good report and ill, through right, and, if
need be, wrong. Yet she was a shrewd and
high-minded woman, and not one of those
fortunate fanatics who can see nothing but
good on one side, and nothing but ill on the
other. Life had grown intolerable in her
mother’s house, and Jean had not in her the
making of a convinced and thoroughgoing
Covenanter, and in going over to the other
party, she had, on the whole, fulfilled herself,
181
as well as found a mate of the same proud
spirit. But she was honest enough to admit
to herself that those Ayrshire peasants were
dying for conscience’ sake, though she might
think it a narrow conscience, and were sincere
in their piety, though she might think it
an unattractive religion. And she could not
shut her eyes to the fact that there was little
glory in shooting them down like muirfowl,
or that the men of Claverhouse’s side were
too often drunken and evil-living bravos.
Jean was feeling the situation in its acuteness
that evening as she read for the third
time a letter which had come from Edinburgh
by the hands of Grimond. At the
sight of the writing her pulse quickened, and
Grimond marked, with jealous displeasure
(for that impracticable Scot never trusted
Jean), the flush of love upon her cheek and
its joy in her eyes. She now drew the letter
from her bosom, and this is what she read,
but in a different spelling from ours and with
some slight differences in construction, all of
which have been translated:
SWEETHEART: It is my one trouble when I must leave
you, and save when I am engaged on the king’s work my
every thought is with you, for indeed it appeareth to me
that if I loved you with strong desire on the day of our
marriage, I love you more soul and body this day. When
182
another woman speaks to me in the daytime, though they
say that she is fair, her beauty coming into comparison
with your’s, is disparaged, beside the sheen of your hair
and the richness of your lips, and though she may have
a pleasant way with men, as they tell me, she hath no
lure for me, as I picture you throw back your head and
look at me with eyes that challenge my love. When the
night cometh, and the task of the day is done, I hold you
in my embrace, the proudest woman in Scotland, and you
say again, as on that day in the pleasaunce, “For life, John
Graham, and for death.”
It has not been easy living for you, Jean, since that
marriage-day, when the trumpets were our wedding-bells,
and your mother’s curse our benediction, and I take
thought oftentimes that it has been harder for thee, Sweetheart,
than for me. I had the encounters of the field with
open enemies and of the Council with false friends, but
thou hast had the loneliness of Dudhope, when I was not
there to caress you and kiss away your cares. Faithful
have you been to the cause, and to me, and I make boast
that I have not been unfaithful myself to either, but the
sun has not been always shining on our side of the hedge
and there have been some chill blasts. Yet they have ever
driven us closer into one another’s arms, and each coming
home, if it has been like the first from the work of war,
has been also like it a new marriage-day. Say you is it not
true, Sweetheart, we be still bridegroom and bride, and
shall be to the end?
When I asked you to be my wife, Jean, I told you that
love even for you would not hinder me from doing the
king’s work, but this matter I have had on hand in Edinburgh
has tried me sorely,––though one in the Council
would guess at my heart. I have also the fear that it will
vex you greatly. Mayhap you have heard, for such news
183
flies fast, that we lighted upon Henry Pollock and a party
of his people last week. They were going to some preaching
and were taken unawares, and we captured them all, not
without blows and blood. Pollock himself fought as ye
might expect, like a man without fear, and was wounded.
I saw that his cuts were bound up, and that he had meat
and drink. We brought him on horseback to Edinburgh,
treating him as well as we could, for while I knew what
the end would be, and that he sought no other, I do not
deny that he is an honest man and I do not forget that he
loved you. Yesterday he was tried before the Council, and
I gave strong evidence against him. Upon my word it
was that he was declared guilty of rebellion against the
king’s authority, and was condemned to death. None other
could I do, Jean, for he that spared so dangerous and
stalwart an enemy as Pollock, is himself a traitor, but
when the Council were fain to insult him I rebuked
them sharply and told them to their face that among
them there was no spirit so clean and brave. This morning
he was executed and since there was a fear lest the
people who have greatly loved him should attempt to
rescue, I was present with two troops of horse. It needeth
not me to tell you that he died well, bidding farewell to
earth and welcome to heaven in words I cannot forget,
tho’ they sounded strange to me. Sweetheart, I will say
something boldly in thine ear. I have had little time
to think of heaven and little desire for such a place, but
I would count myself fortunate if in the hour of death I
were as sure of winning there as Henry Pollock. So he
died for his side, and I helped him to his death; some
day I may die for my side, and his friends will help me
to my death. It is a dark day and a troubled nation.
Henry Pollock and John Graham have both been thorough.
God is our judge, wha kens but He may accept us baith?
184
But I cannot deny he was a saint, as ye once said of him,
and that I shall never be, neither shall you, Jean Graham,
my love and my heart’s delight
This is sore writing to me, but I would rather ye had
it from my hand than from another’s, and I fear me ye
will hear bitter words in Dundee of what has been done.
This is the cup we have to drink and worse things may yet
be coming, for I have the misgiving that black danger is
at hand and that the king will have to fight for his crown.
Before long, if I be not a false prophet, my old general,
the Prince of Orange, will do his part to wrest the throne
from his own wife’s father. If he does the crown will
not be taken without one man seeing that other crowns
be broken, but I fear me, Jean, I fear greatly. In Scotland
the king’s chief servants be mostly liars and cowards, seeking
every man after his own interest, with the heart of
Judas Iscariot, and in London I doubt if they be much
better. These be dreary news, and I wish to heaven I had
better to send thee. This I can ever give, unless ye answer
me that it is yours before, the love of my inmost heart till
I am able to give you it in the kiss of my lips, with your
arms again flung about me, as on that day. Till our meeting
and for evermore, my dearest lady and only Sweetheart
first and last, I am your faithful lover and servant,
John Graham.
So it had come to pass as she had often
feared, that Pollock would die by Claverhouse’s
doing, and now she had not been a
woman if her heart were not divided that evening
between her lovers, although she had no
hesitation either then or in the past about
her preference. Jean knew she was not made
185
to be the wife of an ascetic, but never could
she forget the look in Pollock’s eyes when
he told her of his love, nor cease to be proud
that he had done her the chief honor a man
can render to a woman. She knew then, and
she knew better to-day, that she had never
loved Pollock, and never indeed could have
loved him as a woman loves her husband.
But she revered him then, and he would have
forever a place in her heart like the niche
given to a saint, and she hoped that his
prayers for her––for she knew he would intercede
for her––would be answered in the
highest. Nor could she refrain from the
comparison between Pollock and Graham.
In some respects they were so like one another,
both being men of ancient blood and
high tradition, both carrying themselves without
shame and without fear, both being fanatics––the
one for religion and the other for
loyalty––and, it might be, both alike to be martyrs
for their faith. And so unlike––the one
unworldly, spiritual, and, save in self-defence,
gentle and meek; the other charged with high
ambition, fond of power, ready for battle,
gracious in gay society, passionate in love.
Who had the better of it in the fight––her
debonair husband, with his body-guard of
dragoons, striking down and capturing a
186
minister and a handful of shepherds, or that
pure soul, who lived preaching and praying,
and was willing to die praying and fighting
against hopeless odds? She had cast in her
lot with the Royalists, but it came over her
that in the eternal justice Pollock, dying on
the scaffold, was already victor, and Graham,
who sent him there, was already the loser. If
it had been cruel writing for Claverhouse,
it was cruel reading for his wife, and yet,
when she had read it over again, the passage
on Pollock faded away as if it had been
spiritualized and no longer existed for the
earthly sense. She only lingered over the
words of devotion and passion, and when she
kissed again and again his signature she
knew that whether he was to win or to be
beaten, whether he was right or wrong, angel
or devil––and he was neither––she belonged
with her whole desire to Claverhouse.
Claverhouse’s letter to his wife was written
in May, and by October his gloomy forebodings
regarding the king were being verified.
During the autumn William of Orange
had been preparing to invade England, and
it was freely said he would come on the invitation
of the English people and as the
champion of English liberty. From the beginning
of the crisis James was badly advised,
187
and showed neither nerve nor discernment,
and among other foolish measures was
the withdrawal of the regular troops from
Scotland and their concentration at London.
From London James made a feeble campaign
in the direction of the west, and Claverhouse,
who was in command of the Scots Cavalry,
and whose mind was torn between contempt
for the feebleness of the military measures
and impatience to be at the enemy, wrote to
Jean, sending her, as it seemed to be his lot,
mixed news of honor and despair.
For the fair hands of the Viscountess of Dundee, and Lady
Graham of Claverhouse.
My Dearest Lady: If I have to send ye evil tidings
concerning the affairs of the king, which can hardly be
worse, let me first acquaint you with the honor His Majesty
has bestowed upon me, and which I count the more precious
because it bringeth honor to her who is dearer to me than
life, and who has suffered much trouble through me.
Hitherto our marriage has meant suffering of many kinds
for my Sweetheart, though I am fain to believe there has
been more consolation in our love, but now it is charged
with the King’s favor and high dignity in the State. Whatever
it be worth for you and me, and however long or short
I be left to enjoy it, I have been made a Peer of Scotland
by the titles written above, and what I like best in the
matter, is that the peerage has been given––so it runs, and
no doubt a woman loves to read such things of her man––for
“Many good and eminent services rendered to His
Majesty, and his dearest Royal brother, King Charles II, by
188
his right trusty and well-beloved Councilor, Major-General
John Graham of Claverhouse; together with his constant
loyalty and firm adherence upon all occasions to the true
interests of the crown.” Whatever befalls me it pleases
me that the king knows I have been loyal and that he is
grateful for one faithful servant. So I kiss the hand of
my Lady Viscountess and were I at Dudhope I might
venture upon her lips, aye, more than once.
When I leave myself and come unto the King I have
nothing to tell but what fills me with shame and fear. It
was not good policy to call the troops from Scotland, where
we could have held the land for the King, but one had not
so much regret if we had been allowed to strike a blow
against the Usurper. Had there been a heart in my Lord
Feversham––it hurts me to reflect on the King––then the
army should have made a quick march into the West,
gathering round it all the loyal gentlemen, and struck a
blow at the Prince before he had established himself in
the land. By God’s help we had driven him and his Dutchmen,
and the traitors who have flocked to him, into the
sea. But it is with a sore heart I tell thee, tho’ this had
better be kept to thy secret council, that there seemeth to
be neither wisdom nor courage amongst us. His Majesty
has been living in the Bishop’s Palace, and does nothing
at the time, when to strike quickly is to strike for ever.
Officers in high place are stealing away like thieves, and
others who remain are preaching caution, by which they
mean safety for themselves and their goods. “Damn all
caution,” say I, to Feversham and the rest of them, “let us
into the saddle and forward, let us strike hard and altogether,
for the King and our cause!” If we win it will be
a speedy end to rebellion and another Sedgemoor; if we are
defeated, and I do not despise the Scots Brigade with
Hugh MacKay, we shall fall with honor and not be a
189
scorn to coming generations. For myself, were it not for
thee, Jean, I should crave no better end than to fall in a
last charge for the King and the good cause. As it is,
unless God put some heart into our leaders, the army will
melt away like snow upon a dyke in the springtime, and
William will have an open road to London and the throne
of England. He may have mair trouble and see some
bloodshed before he lays his hand on the auld crown of
Scotland. When I may get awa to the North countrie I
know not yet, but whether I be in the South, where many
are cowards and some are traitors, or in the North, where
the clans at least be true, and there be also not a few loyal
Lowland Cavaliers, my love is ever with thee, dear heart,
and warm upon my breast lies the lock of your golden hair.
Yours till death,
Dundee.
God was not pleased to reënforce the king’s
advisers, and his cause fell rapidly to pieces.
Claverhouse withdrew the Scots Cavalry to
the neighborhood of London, and wore out
his heart in the effort to put manhood into
his party, which was now occupied in looking
after their own interests in the inevitable
revolution. And again Claverhouse, or, as
we should call him, Dundee, wrote to Jean:
Dearest and Bravest of Women: Were ye not that,
as I know well, I had no heart in me to write this letter,
for I have no good thing to tell thee about the cause of
the King and it seems to me certain that, for the time at
least, England is lost. I am now in London, and the days
are far harder for me than when I campaigned with the
190
Usurper, and fought joyfully at Seneffe and Grave. It is
ill to contain oneself when a man has to go from one to
another of his comrades and ask him for God’s sake and
the King’s sake to play the man. Then to get nothing
but fair and false words, and to see the very officers that
hold the King’s commission shuffling and lying, with one
eye on King James and the other on the Prince of Orange.
Had I my way of it I would shoot a dozen of the traitors
to encourage the others. But the King is all for peace––peace,
forsooth! when his enemies are at the door of the
palace. What can one man do against so many, and a
King too tolerant and good-natured––God forgive me, I
had almost written too weak? It is not for me to sit in
judgment on my Sovereign, but some days ago I gave my
mind to Hamilton in his own lodgings, where Balcarres
and certain of us met to take council. There were hot
words, and no good came of it. Balcarres alone is staunch,
and yesterday he went with me to Whitehall and we had
our last word for the present with the King. He was
gracious unto us, as he has ever been to me when his mind
was not poisoned by Queensberry or Perth, and ye might
care to know, Jean, what your man, much daring, said to
His Majesty: “We have come, Sir, to ask a favor of your
Majesty, and that ye will let us do a deed which will
waken the land and turn the tide of affairs. Have we your
permission to cause the drums to be beat of every regiment
in London and the neighbourhood, for if ye so consent
there will be twenty thousand men ready to start to-morrow
morning. Before to-morrow night the road to London will
be barred, and, please God, before a week is over your
throne will be placed beyond danger.” For a space I think
he was moved and then the life went out of him, and he
sadly shook his head. “It is too late,” he said, “too late,
and the shedding of blood would be vain.” But I saw
191
he was not displeased with us, and he signified his pleasure
that we should walk with him in the Mall. Again I dared
to entreat him not to leave his capital without a stroke,
and in my soul I wondered that he could be so enduring.
Had it been your man, Jean, he had been at the Prince’s
throat before the Dutchman had been twenty-four hours
in England. But who am I to reflect upon my King? and
I will say it, that he spake words to me I can never forget.
“You are brave men,” said the King, and, though he be
a cold man, I saw that he was touched, “and if there had
been twenty like you among the officers and nobles, things
had not come to this pass. Ye can do nothing more in
England, and for myself I have resolved to go to France,
for if I stayed here I would be a prisoner, and there is
but a short road between the prison and the graves of
Kings. To you,” he said to Balcarres, “I leave the charge
of civil affairs in Scotland,” and, then turning to me,
“You, Lord Dundee, who ought before to have had this
place, but I was ill-advised, shall be commander of the
troops in Scotland. Do for your King what God gives
you to do, and he pledges his word to aid you by all means
in his power, and in the day of victory to reward you.”
We knelt and kissed his hand, and so for the time, heaven
grant it be not forever, bade goodbye to our Sovereign. As
I walked down the Mall I saw a face I seemed to know,
and the man, whoever he was, made a sign that he would
speak with me. I turned aside and found to my amazement
that the stranger, who was not in uniform, and did not
court observation, was Captain Carlton, who served with
me in the Prince’s army and of whom ye may have heard
me speak. A good soldier and a fair-minded gentleman,
tho’ of another way of thinking from me. After a brief
salutation he told me that the Prince was already in London
and had taken up his quarters at Zion House.
192
“Then,” said I to him, “it availeth nothing for some of
us to remain in London, it were better that we should
leave quickly.” “It might or it might not be,” he replied,
being a man of few and careful words, “but before you go
there is a certain person who desires to have a word with
you. If it be not too much toil will you lay aside your
military dress, and come with me this evening as a private
gentleman to Zion House?” Then I knew that he had come
from the Prince, and altho’ much tossed in my mind as to
what was right to do, I consented, and ye will be astonished,
Jean, to hear what happened.
There was none present at my audience, and I contented
myself with bowing when I entered his presence, for your
husband is not made to kiss the hands of one king in the
morning and of another in the evening of the same day.
The Prince, for so I may justly call him, expected none
otherwise, and, according to his custom––I have often
spoken of his silence––said at once, “My lord,” for he
knows everything as is his wont, “it has happened as I
prophesied, you are on one side and I am on another, and
you have been a faithful servant to your master, as I told
him you would be. If it had been in your power, I had
not come so easily to this place, for the council you gave
to the King has been told to me. All that man can do,
ye have done, and now you may, like other officers, take
service in the army under my command.” Whereupon I
told the Prince that our house had never changed sides,
and he would excuse me setting the example. He seemed
prepared for this answer, and then he said, “You purpose,
my lord, to return to Scotland, and I shall not prevent you,
but I ask that ye stir not up useless strife and shed blood
in vain, for the end is certain.” I will not deny, Jean,
that I was moved by his words, for he is a strong man,
and has men of the same kind with him. So far I went
193
as to say that if duty did not compell me I would not trouble
the land. More I could not promise, and I reckon there is
not much in that promise, for I will never see the Prince
of Orange made King of Scotland with my sword in its
sheath. If there be any other way out of it, I have no
wish to set every man’s hand against his neighbour’s in
Scotland. He bowed to me and I knew that the audience
was over, and when I left Zion House, my heart was sore
that my King was not as wise and resolute as this foreign
Prince. The second sight has been given to me to-day, and,
dear heart, I see the shroud rising till it reaches the face,
but whose face I cannot see. What I have to do, I cannot
see either, but in a few days I shall be in Edinburgh, with
as many of my horse as I can bring. If peace be consistent
with honor then ye will see me soon in Dudhope for another
honeymoon, but if it is to be war my lot is cast, and,
while my hand can hold it, my sword belongs to the King.
But my heart, sweet love, is thine till it ceases to beat.
Yours always and altogether,
Dundee.
194
Early springtime is cruel on the east coast
of Scotland, and it was a bitter morning in
March when Dundee took another of his
many farewells before he left his wife to attend
the Convention at Edinburgh. It was
only a month since he had come down from
London, disheartened for the moment by the
treachery of Royalists and the timidity of
James, and he had found relief in administrating
municipal affairs as Provost of Dundee.
If it had been possible in consistence
with his loyalty to the Jacobite cause, and
the commission he had received from James,
Dundee would have gladly withdrawn from
public life and lived quietly with his wife.
He was an ambitious man, and of stirring
spirit, but none knew better the weakness of
his party, and no one on his side had been
more shamefully treated. It had been his
lot to leave his bride on their marriage day,
and now it would be harder to leave her at
195
a time when every husband desires to be near
his wife. But the summons to be present at
the Convention had come, and its business
was to decide who should be King of Scotland,
for though William had succeeded to
the throne of England, James still reigned
in law over the northern kingdom. Dundee
could not be absent at the deposition of his
king and the virtual close of the Stuart dynasty.
As usual he would be one of a beaten
party, or perhaps might stand alone; it was
not his friends but his enemies who were
calling him to Edinburgh, and the chances
were that the hillmen would settle their account
with him by assassination. His judgment
told him that his presence in Edinburgh
would be fruitless, and his heart held
him to his home. Yet day after day he put
off his going. It was now the thirteenth of
March, and to-morrow the Convention would
meet, and if he were to go he must go quickly.
He had been tossed in mind and troubled in
heart, but the instinct of obedience to duty
which Graham had obeyed through good report
and evil, without reserve, and without
scruple, till he had done not only the things
he ought to have done, but many things also
which he ought not to have done, finally
triumphed. He had told Jean that morning
196
that he must leave. His little escort of
troopers were saddling their horses, and in
half an hour they would be on the road, the
dreary, hopeless road it was his fate to be
ever travelling. Jean and he were saying
their last words before this new adventure,
for they both knew that every departure
might be the final parting. They were standing
at the door, and nothing could be grayer
than their outlook. For a haar had come up
from the sea, as is common on the east coast,
and the cold and dripping mist blotted out
the seascape; it hid the town of Dundee,
which lay below Dudhope, and enveloped the
castle in its cold garments, like a shroud, and
chilled Graham and his wife to the very bone.
“Ye will acknowledge, John, that I have
never hindered you when the call came.” As
she spoke Jean took his flowing hair in her
hand, and he had never seen her so gentle before,
for indeed she could not be called a soft
or tender woman.
“Ye told me what would be the way of life
for us, and it has been what ye said, and I
have not complained. But this day I wish to
God that ye could have stayed, for when my
hour comes, and it is not far off, ye ken I
will miss you sairly. Other women have their
mothers with them in that strait, but for me
197
there is none; naebody but strangers. If ony
evil befall thee, John, it will go ill with me,
and I have in my keeping the hope of your
house. Can ye no bide quietly here with me
and let them that have the power do as they
will in Edinburgh? No man of your own
party has ever thanked you for anything ye
did, and if my mother’s people do their will
by you, I shall surely die and the child with
me. And that will be the end of the House
of Dundee. Must ye go and leave me?”
And now her arm was round him, and with
the other hand she caressed his face, while
her warm bosom pressed against his cold,
hard cuirass.
“Queensberry, for the liar he always was,
said ye would be my Delilah, Jean, but that
I knew was not in you,” said Dundee, smiling
sadly and stroking the proud head, which he
had never seen bowed before.
“You are, I believe in my soul, the bravest
woman in Scotland, and I wish to God the
men on our side had only had the heart of
my Lady Dundee. With a hundred men and
your spirit in them, Jean, we had driven William
of Orange into the sea, or, at the worst,
we should certainly save Scotland for the
king. Well and bravely have ye stood by me
since our marriage day, and if I had ever
198
consulted my own safety or sought after private
ends, I believe ye would have been the
first to cry shame upon me. Surely ye have
been a true soldier’s wife, and ye are the
same this morning, and braver even than on
our wedding day.
“Do not make little of yourself, Jean, because
your heart is sore and ye canna keep
back the tears. It is not given to a man to
understand what a woman feels in your place
but I am trying to imagine, and my love is
suffering with you, sweetheart. I do pity
you, and I could weep with you, but tears are
strange to my eyes––God made me soft without
and hard within––and I have a better
medicine to help you than pity.” Still he
was caressing her, but she felt his body
straightening within the armor.
“When ye prophesy that the fanatics of
the west will be at me in Edinburgh, I suspect
ye are right, but I pray you not to
trouble yourself overmuch. They have shot
at me before with leaden bullets and with
silver, trying me first as a man and next as
a devil, but no bullet touched me, and now if
they fall back upon the steel there are two
or three trusty lads with me who can use the
sword fairly well, and though your husband
be not a large man, Jean, none has had the
199
better of him when it came to sword-play.
So cheer up, lass, for I may fall some day,
but it will not be at the hands of a skulking
Covenanter in a street brawl.
“But if this should come to pass, Jean––and
the future is known only to God––then I beseech
you that ye be worthy of yourself, and
show them that ye are my Lady Dundee. If
I fall, then ye must live, and take good care
that the unborn child shall live, too, and if
he be a boy––as I am sure he will be––then
ye have your life-work. Train him up in the
good faith and in loyalty to the king; tell
him how Montrose fought for the good cause
and died for it, and how his own father followed
in the steps of the Marquis. Train
him for the best life a man can live and make
him a soldier, and lay upon him from his
youth that ye will not die till he has avenged
his father’s murder. That will be worthy of
your blood and your rank, aye, and the love
which has been between us, Jean Cochrane
and John Graham.”
She held him in her arms till the very
breastplate was warm, and she kissed him
twice upon the lips. Then she raised herself
to her full height––and she was as tall as
Graham––and looking proudly at him, she
said:
200
“Ye have put strength into me, as if the
iron which covers your breast had passed into
my blood. Ye go to-day with my full will to
serve the king, and God protect and prosper
you, my husband and my Lord Dundee.”
For a space the heat of Jean’s high courage
cheered her husband’s heart, but as the
day wore on, and hour by hour he rode
through the cold gray mist which covered Fife,
the temperature of his heart began to correspond
with the atmosphere. While Dundee
had always carried himself bravely before
men, and had kept his misgivings to himself,
and seemed the most indifferent of gay Cavaliers,
he had really been a modest and diffident
man. From the first he had had grave
fears of the success of his cause, and more
than doubts about the loyalty of his comrades.
He was quite prepared not only for
desperate effort, but for final defeat. No
man could say he had embarked on the royal
service from worldly ends, and now, if he had
been a shrewd Lowland Scot, he had surely
consulted his safety and changed his side, as
most of his friends were doing. Graham did
not do this for an imperative reason––because
he had been so made that he could not. There
are natures which are not consciously dishonest
or treacherous, but which are flexible
201
and accommodating. They are open to the
play of every influence, and are sensitive to
environment; they are loyal when others are
loyal, but if there be a change in spirit round
them they immediately correspond, and they
do so not from any selfish calculation, but
merely through a quick adaptation to environment.
People of this kind find themselves
by an instinct on the winning side, but
they would be mightily offended if they were
charged with being opportunists. They are
at each moment thoroughly convinced of
their integrity, and are ever on the side
which commends itself to their judgment; if
it happens to be the side on which the sun is
shining, that is a felicitous accident. There
are other natures, narrower possibly and
more intractable, whose chief quality is a
thoroughgoing and masterful devotion, perhaps
to a person, perhaps to a cause. Once
this devotion is given, it can never be changed
by any circumstance except the last and most
inexcusable treachery, and then it will be apt
to turn into a madness of hatred which nothing
will appease. There is no optimism in
this character, very often a clear-sighted and
painful acceptance of facts; faults are distinctly
seen and difficulties are estimated at
their full strength, sacrifice is discounted,
202
and defeat is accepted. But the die is cast,
and for weal or woe––most likely woe––they
must go on their way and fight the fight to
the end. This was the mould in which Dundee
was cast, the heir of shattered hopes, and
the descendant of broken men, the servant
of a discredited and condemned cause. He
faced the reality, and knew that he had only
one chance out of a hundred of success; but
it never entered his mind to yield to circumstances
and accept the new situation. There
was indeed a moment when he would have
been willing, not to change his service, but to
sheathe his sword and stand apart. That moment
was over, and now he had bidden his
wife good-by and was riding through the
cold gray mist to do his weary, hopeless best
for an obstinate, foolish, impracticable king,
and to put some heart, if it were possible,
into a dwindling handful of unprincipled,
self-seeking, double-minded men. The day
was full of omens, and they were all against
him. Twice a hare ran across the road, and
Grimond muttered to himself as he rode behind
his master, “The ill-faured beast.” As
they passed through Glenfarg, a raven followed
them for a mile, croaking weirdly. A
trooper’s horse stumbled and fell, and the
man had to be left behind, insensible. When
203
they halted for an hour at Kinross it spread
among the people who they were, and they
were watched by hard, unsympathetic faces.
The innkeeper gave them what they needed,
but with ill grace, and it was clear that only
fear of Dundee prevented him refusing food
both to man and beast. When they left a
crowd had gathered, and as they rode out
from the village a voice cried: “Woe unto
the man of blood––a double woe! He goeth,
but he shall not return, his doom is fixed.”
An approving murmur from the hearers
showed what the Scots folk thought of John
Graham. Grimond would fain have turned
and answered this Jeremiah and his chorus
with a touch of the sword, but his commander
forbade him sharply. “We have
other men to deal with,” he said to Grimond,
“than country fanatics, and our work is before
us in Edinburgh.” But he would not
have been a Scot if he had been indifferent
to signs, and this raven-croak the whole day
long rang in his heart. The sun struggled
for a little through the mist, and across Loch
Leven they saw on its island the prison-house
of Mary. “Grimond,” said Graham, “there
is where they kept her, and by this road she
went out on her last hopeless ride, and we
follow her, Jock. But not to a prison, ye
204
may stake your soul on that. It was enough
that one Graham should die upon a scaffold.
The next will die in the open field.”
It was late when they reached Edinburgh,
and a murky night when they rode up Leith
Wynd; the tall houses of Edinburgh hung
over them; the few lights struggled against
the thick, enveloping air. Figures came out
of one dark passage, and disappeared into another.
A body of Highlanders, in the Campbell
tartan, for a moment blocked the way.
Twice they were cursed by unknown voices,
and when Claverhouse reached his lodging
someone called out his name, and added:
“The day of vengeance is at hand. The
blood of John Brown crieth from the altar!”
And Grimond kept four troopers on guard all
night.
The next night Claverhouse and Balcarres
were closeted together, the only men left to
consult for the royal cause, and both knew
what was going to be the issue.
“There is no use blinding our eyes, Balcarres,”
said Graham, “or feeding our hearts
with vain hopes, the Convention is for the
Prince of Orange, and is done with King
James. The men who kissed his hand yesterday,
when he was in power, and would have
licked his feet if that had got them place and
205
power, will be the first to cast him forth and
cry huzza for the new king. There is a black
taint in the Scots blood, and there always
have been men in high position to sell their
country. The lords of the congregation were
English traitors in Mary’s day, and on them
as much as that wanton Elizabeth lay her
blood. It was a Scots army sold Charles I
to the Roundheads, and it would have been
mair decent to have beheaded him at Edinburgh.
And now they will take the ancient
throne of auld Scotland and hand it over,
without a stroke, to a cold-blooded foreigner
who has taught his wife to turn her hand
against her own father. God’s ban is upon
the land, Balcarres, for one party of us be
raging fanatics, and the other party be false-hearted
cowards. Lord, if we could set the
one against the other, Argyle’s Highlanders
against the West Country Whigs, it were a
bonnie piece of work, and if they fought till
death the country were well rid o’ baith, for
I know not whether I hate mair bitterly a
Covenanter or a Campbell. But it would set
us better, Balcarres, to keep our breath to
cool oor ain porridge. What is this I hear,
that Athole is playing the knave, and that
Gordon cannot be trusted to keep the castle?
Has the day come upon us that the best names
206
in Scotland are to be dragged in the mire? I
sairly doot that for the time the throne is lost
to the auld line, but if it is to be sold by the
best blood of Scotland, then I wish their silver
bullet had found John Graham’s heart at
Drumclog.”
“Ye maunna deal ower hardly with Athole,
Dundee, for I will not say he isna true. His
son, mind you, is on the other side, and Athole
himself is a man broken in body. These be
trying times, and it is not every ane has your
heart. It may be that Athole and other men
judge that everything has been done that can,
and that a heavy burden o’ guilt will rest on
ony man that spills blood without reason.
Mind you,” went on Balcarres hastily, as he
saw the black gloom gathering on Dundee’s
face, “I say not that is my way of it, for I
am with you while ony hope remains, but we
maun do justice.”
“Justice!” broke in Claverhouse, irritated
beyond control by Balcarres’s apologies
and his hint of compromise. “If I had my
way of it, every time-serving trickster in the
land would have justice––a rope round his
neck and a long drop, for a bullet would be
too honorable a death. But let Athole pass.
He was once a loyal man, and there may be
reason in what ye say. I have never known
207
sickness myself, and doubtless it weakens
even strong men. But what is this I hear
of Gordon? Is it a lie that he is trafficking
with Hamilton and the Whig lords to surrender
the castle? If so, he is the most damnable
traitor of them all, and will have his
place with Judas Iscariot.”
“Na, na, Dundee, nae Gordon has ever
been false, though I judge maist o’ them,
since Mary’s day, have been foolish. Concerning
the castle, this is how the matter
stands, and I pray you to hear me patiently
and not to fly out till I have finished.”
“For God’s sake, speak out and speak on,
and dinna sit watching me as if you were
terrified for your life, and dinna pick your
words, like a double-dealing, white-blooded
Whig lawyer, or I will begin to think that
the leprosy of cowardice has reached the
Lindsays.”
“Weel, Dundee”––but Balcarres was still
very careful with his word––“I have reason
to believe, and, in fact, I may as well say I
know, that there have been some goings and
comings between Gordon and the Lords of
Convention. I will not say that Gordon isna
true to the king, and that he would not hold
the castle if it would help the cause. But I
am judging that he isna minded to be left
208
alone and keep Edinburgh Castle for King
James if all Scotland is for King William.”
And Balcarres, plucking up courage in the
face of his fierce companion, added: “I will
not say, Dundee, that the duke is wrong.
What use would it be if he did? But mind
you,” went on Balcarres hastily, “he hasna
promised to surrender his trust. He is just
waiting to see what happens.”
“Which they have all been doing, every
woman’s son of them, instead of minding
their duty whatever happens; but I grant
there’s no use raging, we maun make our
plans. What does Gordon want if he’s holding
his hand? Out with it, Balcarres, for I
see from your face ye ken.”
“If the duke,” replied Balcarres, “had
ony guarantee that a fight would be made
for the auld line in Scotland, and that he
would not be left alane, like a sparrow upon
the housetop in Edinburgh Castle, I make
certain he would stand fast; but if the royal
standard is to be seen nowhere else except
on one keep––strong though that be––the
duke will come to terms wi’ the Convention.
There ye have the situation, mak’ o’ it what
ye will.”
“By God, Balcarres, if that be true, and I
jalouse that ye are richt, Gordon will get his
209
assurance this very nicht. It’s a fair and
just pledge he asks, and I know the man
who’ll give it to him. Edinburgh will no be
the only place in the land where the good standard
flies before many days are passed. Man!
Balcarres, this is good news ye have brought,
and I am glad to ken that there is still red
blood in Gordon’s heart. I’m thinking ye’ve
had your own communings wi’ the duke, and
that ye ken the by-roads to the castle. Settle
it that he and I can meet this very nicht, and
if need be I’ll be ready to leave the morrow’s
morning. Aye, Balcarres, if the duke
holds the fastness, I’ll look after the open
country.” And before daybreak there was a
meeting between the Gordon and the Graham.
They exchanged pledges, each to do
his part, but both of them knew an almost
hopeless part, for the king. Many a forlorn
hope had their houses led, and this would be
only one more.
While his master had been reënforcing the
duke’s determination and giving pledges of
thoroughness, Grimond had been doing his
part to secure Dundee’s safety in the seat of
his enemies. Edinburgh was swarming with
West Country Whigs, whose day of victory
had come, and who had hurried to the capital
that they might make the most of it. No one
210
could blame them for their exultation, least
of all Claverhouse. They had been hunted
like wild beasts, they had been scattered
when worshipping God according to the fashion
of their fathers, they had been shot down
without a trial, they had been shut up in noisome
prisons––and all this because they would
not submit to the most corrupt government
ever known in Scotland, and that most intolerable
kind of tyranny which tries, not only
to coerce a man as a citizen, but also as a
Christian. They had many persecutors, but,
on the whole, the most active had been Graham,
and it was Graham they hated most. It
is his name rather than that of Dalzell or
Lauderdale which has been passed with execration
from mouth to mouth and from
generation to generation in Scotland. The
tyrant James had fled, like the coward he
was, and God’s deliverer had come––a man of
their own faith––in William of Orange. The
iron doors had been burst and the fetters had
been broken, there was liberty to hear the
word of the Lord again, and the Kirk of
Scotland was once more free. Justice was
being done, but it would not be perfect till
Claverhouse suffered the penalty of his
crimes. It had been the hope of many a dour
Covenanter, infuriated by the wrongs of his
211
friends, if not his own, to strike down Claverhouse
and avenge the sufferings of God’s
people. Satan had protected his own, but
now the man of blood was given into their
hands. Surely it was the doing of the Lord
that Dundee should have left Dudhope, where
he was in stronghold, and come up to Edinburgh,
where his friends were few. That he
should go at large upon the streets and take
his seat in the Convention, that he should
dare to plot against William and lift a hand
for James in this day of triumph, was his
last stroke of insolence––the drop which filled
his cup to overflowing. He had come to
Edinburgh, to which he had sent many a martyr
of the Covenant, and where he had seen
Henry Pollock die for Christ’s crown and
the Scots kirk. Behold! was it not a sign,
and was it not the will of the Lord that in
this high place, where godly men had been
murdered by him, his blood should be spilled
as an offering unto the Lord?
This was what the hillmen were saying
among themselves as they gathered in their
meetings and communed together in their
lodgings. They were not given to public
vaporing, and were much readier to strike
than to speak, but when there are so many,
and their hearts are so hot, a secret cannot
212
be easily kept. And Grimond, who concealed
much shrewdness behind a stolid face––which
is the way with Scots peasants––caught some
suspicious words as two unmistakable Covenanters
passed him in the high street. If
mischief was brewing for his master, it was
his business to find it out and take a hand in
the affair. He followed the pair as if he
were a countryman gaping at the sights of
the town and the stir of those days, when
armed men passed on every side and the air
was thick with rumors. When the Covenanters,
after glancing round, plunged down a
dark entry and into an obscure tavern,
Grimond, after a pause, followed cautiously,
assuming as best he could––and not unsuccessfully––the
manner of a man from the
west. The outer room was empty when he
entered, and he was careful when he got his
measure of ale to bend his head over it for
at least five minutes by way of grace. The
woman, who had glanced sharply at him on
entry, was satisfied by this sign of godliness,
and left him in a dark corner, from which
he saw one after another of the saints pass
into an inner chamber. Between the two
rooms there was a wooden partition, and
through a crack in the boarding Grimond
was able to see and hear what was going on.
213
It was characteristic of the men that they
opened their conference of assassination with
prayer, in which the sorrows of the past were
mentioned with a certain pathos, and thanks
given for the great deliverance which had
been wrought. Then they asked wisdom and
strength to finish the Lord’s work, and to
rid the land of the chief of the Amalekites,
after which they made their plan. Although
Grimond could not catch everything that was
said, he gathered clearly that when Claverhouse
left his lodging to attend the Convention
on the morning of the fifteenth of March,
they would be waiting in the narrow way, as
if talking with friends, and would slay the
persecutor before he could summon help.
When it was agreed who should be present,
and what each one should do, they closed their
meeting, as they had opened it, with prayer.
One of them glanced suspiciously round the
kitchen as he passed through, but saw no man,
for Grimond had quietly departed. He knew
his master’s obstinate temper and reckless
courage, and was afraid if he told him of the
plot that he would give no heed, or trust to
his own sword. “We’ll run no risks,” said
Grimond to himself, and next morning a dozen
troopers of Claverhouse’s regiment guarded
the entry to his lodging, and a dozen more were
214
scattered handily about the street. They followed
him to the Convention and waited till
he returned. That was how Claverhouse lived
to fight the battle of Killiecrankie, but till that
day came he had never been so near death as
in that narrow way of Edinburgh.
Dundee was not a prudent man, and he was
very fearless, but for once he consulted common-sense
and made ready to leave Edinburgh.
It was plain that the Convention would elect
William to the throne of Scotland, and as the
days passed it was also very bitter to him that
the Jacobites were not very keen about the rising.
When he learned that his trusted friends
were going to attend the Convention, and did
not propose with undue haste to raise the
standard for the king, Dundee concluded that
if anything should be done, it would not be
by such cautious spirits. As he seemed to be
the sole hope of his cause, the sooner he was
out of Edinburgh the better. When he was
seen upon the street with fifty of his troopers,
mounted and armed, there was a wild idea of
arresting him, but it came to nothing. There
was not time to gather the hillmen together,
and there was no heart in the others to face
this desperate man and his body-guard.
With his men behind him, he rode down
Leith Wynd unmolested, and when someone
215
cried, “Where art thou going, Lord Dundee?”
he turned him round in the saddle
and answered, “Whither the spirit of Montrose
will lead me.” A fortnight later, in
front of his house at Dudhope, he raised the
standard for King James, and Jean Cochrane,
a mother now, holding their infant son
in her arms, stood by his side before he rode
north. As he had left her on their marriage
day with his troopers, so now he left her and
their child, to see her only once again––a
cruel meeting, before he fell. Verily, a life
of storm and stress, of bitter conflicts and
many partings. Verily, a man whom, right or
wrong, the fates were treating as a victim
and pursuing to his doom.
216
It is said that those stories are best liked
which present a hero and sing his achievements
from beginning to end. And the more
faultless and brilliant the hero, the better
goes the tale, and the louder the applause.
Certainly John Graham is the central figure
in this history, and so rich is the color of the
man and so intense his vitality, that other
personages among whom he moves become
pale and uninteresting. They had, if one
takes the long result, a larger share in affairs,
and their hand stretches across the centuries,
but there was not in them that charm
of humanity which captivates the heart. One
must study the work of William of Orange if
he is to understand the history of his nation,
but one would not go round the corner to
meet him. Claverhouse, if one faces the facts
and sweeps away the glamour, was only a
dashing cavalry officer, who happened to win
an insignificant battle by obvious local tactics,
217
and yet there are few men whom one
would prefer to meet. One would make a
long journey to catch a sight of Claverhouse
riding down the street, as one to-day is
caught by the fascination of his portrait.
But the reader has already discovered that
Graham can hardly be called a hero by any of
the ordinary tests except beauty of personal
appearance. He was not an ignorant man,
as certain persons have concluded from the
varied and picturesque habits of his spelling,
but his friends cannot claim that he was
endowed with rich intellectual gifts. He had
sense enough to condemn the wilder excesses
of his colleagues in the government of the
day, but he had not force enough to replace
their foolishness by a wiser policy. Had his
powers been more commanding, or indeed if
he had had any talent for constructive action,
with his unwavering integrity and masterful
determination, he might have ousted Lauderdale
and saved Scotland for King James.
But accomplished intriguers and trained politicians
were always too much for Claverhouse,
and held him as a lithe wild animal is
caught in the meshes of a net.
Wild partisans, to whom every man is
either white as snow or black as pitch, have
gone mad over Graham, making him out, according
218
to their craze, either an angel or a
devil, and forgetting that most men are half
and between. But it must be also said that
those who hold John Graham to have been a
Jacobite saint are the more delirious in their
minds, and hysterical in their writing, for
they will not hear that he ever did anything
less than the best, or that the men he persecuted
had any right upon their side. He is
from first to last a perfect paladin of romance
whom everyone is bound to praise.
Then artists rush in and not only make fine
trade of his good looks, but lend his beauty
to the clansmen who fought at Killiecrankie,
till the curtain falls upon “Bonnie Dundee”
being carried to his grave by picturesque and
broken-hearted Highlanders dressed in the
costly panoply of the Inverness Gathering,
and with faces of the style of George MacDonald
or Lord Leighton. Whatever Claverhouse
was, and this story at least suggests
that he was brave and honorable, he was in
no sense a saint, and would have been the
last to claim this high degree. It is open to
question whether he deserved to be called a
good man, for he was ambitious of power
and, perhaps for public ends, of wealth; he
had no small measure of pride and jealousy
in him; he was headstrong and unmanageable,
219
and for his own side he was unrelenting
and cruel. There are things he would not
have done to advance his cause, as, for instance,
tell lies, or stain his honor, but he
never would have dreamed of showing mercy
to his opponent. Nor did he ever try to enter
into his mind or understand what the other
man was feeling.
It is sometimes judged enough for a hero
that he succeed without being clever or good,
but neither did Graham pass this doubtful
and dangerous test. For when you clear
away the romance which heroic poetry and
excited prose have flung around him, you
were an optimist if you did not see his life
was one long failure as well as a disappointment
and a sorrow. He did bravely with the
Prince of Orange, and yet somehow he missed
promotion; he was the best officer the government
had in Scotland, and yet it was only
in the last resort he became commander-in-chief.
He was the only honest man among a
gang of rascals in the Scots council, and yet
he was once dismissed from it; he was entitled
to substantial rewards, and yet he had to make
degrading appeals to obtain his due. He
was loyal to foolishness, yet he was represented
to the Court as a man who could not
be trusted. He had only two love affairs;
220
the first brought him the reputation of mercenary
aims, and the second almost ruined
his life. He embarked on a contest which
was hopeless from the beginning, and died
at the close of a futile victory. Except winning
the heart of Jean Cochrane, he failed
in everything which he attempted. With the
exception of his wife he was betrayed on
every hand, while a multitude hated him with
all their strength and thirsted for his blood.
If Jean were not true to him there would not
be one star in the dark sky of Claverhouse’s
life.
But this irredeemable and final disaster is
surely incredible. Dundee, fooled as he had
been both by his master and by his friends
till he was alone and forsaken, was bound to
put his whole trust in his wife. Had she not
made the last sacrifices for him and through
dark days stood bravely by his side? Their
private life had not always run smoothly, for
if in one way they were well mated, because
both were of the eagle breed, in another way,
they were ill-suited, because they were so
like. John Graham and Jean Cochrane both
came of proud houses which loved to rule,
and were not accustomed to yield, they both
had iron and determined wills, they shared
the dubious gift of a lofty temper and fiery
221
affections. They were set upon their own
ways, and so they had clashed many a time
in plan and deed; hot words had passed between
them, and they had been days without
speech. But below the tumult of contending
wills, and behind the flash of fiery hearts,
they were bound together by the passion of
their first love, which had grown and deepened,
and by that respect which strong and
honorable people have for one another. They
could rage, but each knew that the other
could not lie; they could be most unreasonable,
but each knew that the other could never
descend to dishonor, so their quarrels had
always one ending, and seemed, after they
were over, to draw them closer together and
to feed their love. One could not think of
them as timid and gentle creatures, billing
and cooing their affection; one rather imagined
the lion and his lioness, whose very
love was fierce and perilous. No power from
without could separate these two nor make
them quail. Alone and united Dundee and
his wife could stand undismayed and self-sufficient,
with all Scotland against them.
Nothing could ever break their bond except
dishonor. But if one should charge the other
with that foulest crime, then the end had
come, beside which death would be welcome.
222
Where life is a comedy one writes with
gayety not untouched by contempt; where
life is a tragedy one writes with tears not
unredeemed by pride. But one shrinks when
the tragedy deepens into black night, and is
terrified when strong passions, falling on an
evil day, work their hot wills, with no restraining
or favorable fate. There are people
whose life is a primrose path along which
they dance and prattle, whose emotions are
a pose, whose thoughts are an echo, whose
trials are a graceful luxury; there are others
whose way lies through dark ravines and beside
raging torrents, over whose head the black
clouds are ever lowering, and whom any moment
the lightning may strike. This was
their destiny. Upon their marriage day one
saw the way that these two would have to go,
and it was inevitable that they should drink
their cup to the dregs.
The blame of what happened must be laid
at Graham’s door, and in his last hours he
took it altogether to himself; but since it has
to be written about, and he showed so badly,
let us make from the first the best excuse we
can for him, and try to appreciate his state
of mind. It was a brave event and a taking
scene when he set up the standard of King
James above Dundee, and he left to raise the
223
North Country with a flush of hope. It soon
passed away and settled down into dreary determination,
as he made his toilsome journey
with a handful of followers by Aboyne and
Huntly, till he landed in Inverness. The
Gordons had sent him a reënforcement, and
certain of the chiefs had promised their support,
but the only aid the Highlanders had
given was of dubious value and very disappointing
issue. The MacDonalds had hastened
to Inverness by way of meeting Dundee,
and then had seized the opportunity to
plunder their old enemies, the Mackintoshes,
and to extract a comfortable ransom out of
Inverness. This was not his idea of war,
and Dundee scolded Keppoch, who commanded
the MacDonalds, most vigorously.
Keppoch immediately returned homeward to
his fastnesses with the accumulated spoil,
partly because his fine, sensitive Highland
nature was hurt by Dundee’s plain speech,
and partly because whatever happened it
was wise to secure what they had got. It is
no reflection on Dundee’s manhood that he
was cast down during those days at Inverness,
for a ten times more buoyant man would
have lost heart. His life was a romantic
drama, and it seemed as if the Fates had constructed
it for the stage, for now, after the
224
lapse of years, MacKay, his old rival in Holland,
reappears, and they resume the duel,
which this time is to be unto death. While
Dundee was struggling in Edinburgh to save
the throne for James, MacKay was on his
way with regiments of the Scots Brigade to
make sure of Scotland for William. A few
days after Dundee left Edinburgh MacKay
arrived, and now, as Dundee rode northward
in hot haste, MacKay was on his track. Both
were eager for a meeting, but the bitterness
of it for Dundee was that he dared not run
the risk. With all his appeals and all his
riding, he had only a handful of mounted
men, and the clans had not risen. It seemed
as if his enterprise were futile, and that Scotland
would not lift a hand for King James.
He might be a commander-in-chief, but he
was a commander of nobody; he might raise
a standard, but it was only a vain show. It
did not matter where he went or what he did;
he was not a general, but a fugitive, a man
to be neglected, and his following a handful
of bandits. The rising was a thing to laugh
at, and the report was current in the capital
that he had absconded with one or two servants.
This pretty description of his campaign
had not reached his ears, but the
humiliation of his situation burned into his
225
proud heart. Much as he would have liked
to meet MacKay, there remained for him no
alternative but flight. Flight was the only
word which could describe his journey, and
as he planned his course on the morrow, how
he would ride to Invergarry, and then return
on his course, and then make his way to
Cluny, he started to his feet and paced the
room in a fury of anger. What better was
he than a hare with the hounds after him,
running for his life, and doubling in his
track, fleeing here and dodging there, a cowering,
timid, panting animal of the chase?
“Damnation!” and Dundee flung himself
out of the room, and paced up and down the
side of the river.
There was a dim light upon the running
water, and his thoughts turned to the West
Country, to the streams he had often crossed
and along whose bed he had sometimes ridden,
as he hunted for his Covenanting prey.
The Fates were just, for now the Whigs were
the hunters and he was the hunted. He began
to understand what it was to be ever on
the alert for the approach of the enemy, to
escape at the first sign of danger, to cross
hills in full flight, and to be listening for the
sound of the pursuer. As yet he had not to
hide, but before many days were over he also
226
may be skulking in moss-hags, and concealing
himself in caves, and disguising himself
in peasant’s garments, he, John Graham of
Claverhouse, and my Viscount of Dundee.
The tables had turned with a vengeance, and
the day of the godly had come. The hillmen
would laugh when they heard of it, and the
Conventicles would rejoice together. MacKay
would be sitting in his quarters at Elgin
that night making his plans also, but not for
flight, and hardly for fighting. When officers
arrest an outlaw, it is not called a battle any
more than when hounds run a fox to his lair.
MacKay would be arranging how to trap him,
anticipating his ways of escape, and stopping
all the earths, so that say, to-morrow, he
might be quietly taken. It would not be a
surrender; it would be a capture, and he
would be sent to Edinburgh in charge of half
a dozen English dragoons, and tried at Edinburgh,
and condemned for treason against
King William––King William. They would
execute him without mercy, and be only
doing to him what he had done to the Whigs,
and just as he had kept guard at Pollock’s
execution, that new Cameronian Regiment,
of which there was much talk, would keep
guard at his. There would be little cause for
precaution; no one need fear a rescue, for
227
the hillmen would be there in thousands with
the other Whigs, to feast their eyes upon his
shame, and cheer his death. He could not
complain, for it would happen to him as it
had to many of them, and what he had sown
that would he reap. Would MacKay be
laughing that night at Elgin, with his officers,
and crying in his Puritanic cant, “Aha, aha,
how is the enemy fallen and the mighty cast
down! Where now is the boasting of his
pride, where now is the persecutor of the
saints?” No, far worse, MacKay would
give orders in his cold, immovable manner,
and treat the matter as of no account, as one
who had never expected anything else from
the beginning, and was only amazed at his
opponent’s madness. That was the inner
bitterness of it all; they had taken their sides
fifteen years ago; MacKay had chosen wisely,
and he had chosen foolishly, as the world
would say. The conflict had been inevitable,
and it was quite as inevitable that his would
be the losing side. William saw what was
coming afar off, so did MacKay; and it had
all come to pass, year by year, act by act, and
now MacKay was to give the last stroke.
They had won, and they had been sure all the
time they were going to win, and they would
win with hardly an effort. He did not repent
228
of his loyalty, and he would not have
done otherwise if he had had the choice over
again. But their foresight, and their patience,
and their capacity, and their thoroughness,
and the madness of his own people,
and their feebleness, and their cowardice, and
their helplessness, infuriated him. “Curse
MacKay and his master, and the whole crew
of cold-blooded Whigs! But it is I and mine
which are cursed.”
“Amen to the malediction on the Usurper
and all his servants; it’s weel deserved, and
may it sune be fulfilled, full measure and
rinnin’ over, but for ony sake dinna curse
yersel’, my lord, for it’s blessings ye’ve earned
as a faithful servant o’ your king.” And
Dundee turned round to find his faithful servant
had arrived from home and had sought
him out on the riverside.
“You took me by surprise, Jock, and
startled me, for I knew not that any man was
near. I thought that you of all men were at
Dudhope, where I left you, to protect Lady
Dundee and the young lord. Is aught
wrong,” cried Dundee anxiously, “my wife
and child, are they both well? Speak
quickly.” For even then Dundee saw that
Grimond was hesitating, and looked like a
man who had to speak carefully. “Do not
229
tell me that MacKay has ordered the castle
to be seized, and that the dragoons have insulted
my family; this were an outrage on
the laws of war. If they have done this thing
I will avenge it before many days pass. Is
that the news ye bring?” And Dundee
gripped his servant’s shoulder and shook him
with such violence that Grimond, a strongly
built fellow, was almost thrown from his feet.
“Be quiet, Maister John, for I canna help
callin’ ye that, and dinna work yoursel’ into
a frenzy, for this is no like your ain sel’. Na,
na, Dudhope is safe, and no a single dragoon,
leastways a soldier, has been near it since ye
left; whatever other mischief he may do,
Colonel Livingstone, him that commands the
cavalry ye ken, at Dundee, will no see ony
harm come to my Lady Dundee. Have no
fear on that concern, my lord.”
“You havena come for nought, Grimond,
and I’m not expecting that ye have much
good to tell. Good tidings do not come my
way in these days. Is the lad well?” said
Dundee anxiously, “for in him is all my
hope.”
“It’s a gude hope then, my lord, for the
bairn is juist bye-ordinary. I could see him
growing every day, and never a complaint
from his mouth except when he wants his
230
food. God be thankit there’s nothing wrong
wi’ him, and it does my heart good to see that
he is a rael Graham, a branch o’ the old tree;
long may it stand in Scotland, and wide may
its branches spread. If it be the will of
Providence I would like to live till my auld
een saw Lord Graham of Claverhouse, for
that I’m supposing is his title, riding on the
right hand of the Viscount of Dundee. And
I would be a’ the better pleased if it was over
the necks of the Whigs. My lord, ye will
never be ashamed of your son.”
“Ye have said nothing of Lady Dundee’s
health, surely she isna ill or anything befallen
her. It was hard, Jock, for a man to
leave his wife but a few weeks after his son
was born. Yet she recovered quickly as becometh
a strong and healthy woman, and
when I left her she was in good heart and was
content that I should go. There is nothing
wrong with Lady Dundee, Jock?”
“Ye may set yir mind at rest aboot her
ladyship, Maister John. She’s stronger than
I’ve ever seen her, and I can say no more than
that, nor have I ever marked her more active,
baith by nicht and day, and in spite o’ her
lord being so far awa and in sic peril, ye
would never think she had an anxious thought.
It’s amazin’ an’ ... very encouragin’
231
to see her ladyship sae content an’ ...
occupied. Ye need have nae concern aboot her
bodily condeetion, an’ of course that’s a great
matter.”
Dundee was so relieved to hear that his
wife and child were well, and that Dudhope
was safe, that he did not for the moment catch
with the dubious tone of Grimond’s references
to Lady Dundee, and indeed it struck
no unaccustomed note. Grimond had all the
virtues of a family retainer––utter forgetfulness
of self, and absolute devotion to his master’s
house, as well as a passionate, doglike
affection for Dundee. But he had the defects
of his qualities. It seems the inevitable disability
of this faithfulness, that this kind of
servant is jealous of any newcomer into the
family, suspicious of the stranger’s ways,
over-sensitive to the family interests, and
ready at any moment to fight for the family’s
cause. Grimond had done his best to prevent
his master’s marriage with Jean Cochrane,
and had never concealed his conviction that
it was an act of madness; he had never been
more than decently civil to his mistress, and
there never had been any love lost between
them. If she had been a smaller woman,
Jean would have had him dismissed from her
husband’s side, but being what she was herself,
232
proud and thoroughgoing, she respected
him for his very prejudices, and his dislike
of her she counted unto him for righteousness.
Jean had made no effort to conciliate Grimond,
for he was not the kind of watchdog to be won
from his allegiance by a tempting morsel.
She laughed with her husband over his watchfulness,
and often said, “Ye may trust me
anywhere, John, if ye leave Grimond in
charge. If I wanted to do wrong I should
not be able.” “Ye would be wise, Jean,”
Graham would reply, “to keep your eye on
Grimond if ye are minded to play a prank,
for his bite is as quick as his bark.” They
laughed together over this jest, for they
trusted each other utterly, as they had good
reason to do, but the day was at hand when
that laughter was to be bitter in the mouth.
“Ye are like a cross-grained tyke which
snarls at its master’s best friend through
faithfulness to him. Ye never liked your
mistress from the beginning, because ye
thought she would not be loyal, but, man, ye
know better now,” said Dundee kindly, “and
it’s time ye were giving her a share o’ the
love ye’ve always given me.”
“Never!” cried Grimond hotly. “And I
canna bear that ye should treat this maitter as
a jest. Many a faithful dog has been scolded––aye,
233
and maybe struck, by his maister when
he had quicker ears than the foolish man,
and was giving warning of danger.
“Ye think me, my lord, a silly and cankered
auld haveril, and that my head is full
of prejudices and fancies. Would to God
that I were wrong. If I were, I would go
down on my knees to her ladyship and ask
her pardon and serve her like a dog all the
days of my life; but, waes me, I’m ower richt.
When my lady is loyal to you I’ll be loyal to
her, but no an hour sooner, say ye as ye like,
laugh ye as ye will. But my lady is false,
and ye are deceived in your own home.”
“Do you know what you are saying,
Grimond, and to whom you are speaking?
We have carried this jest too far, and it is
my blame, but ye may not again speak this
way of your mistress in my presence. I know
you mean nothing by it, and it is all your love
of me and dislike of Covenanters that makes
you jealous; but never again, Grimond, remember,
or else, old servant though you be,
you leave me that hour. It’s a madness with
you; ye must learn to control it,” said Dundee
sternly.
“It’s nae madness, my lord,” answered
Grimond doggedly, “and has naethin’ to do
with my lady being a Cochrane. Maybe I
234
would rather she had been a Graham or a Carnegie,
but that was nae business o’ mine.
Even if I didna like her, it’s no for a serving-man
to complain o’ his mistress. I ken when
to speak and when to hold my tongue, but
there are things I canna see and forbear. My
lord, it’s time you were at Dudhope, for the
sake, o’ your honor.”
“Grimond,” said Dundee, and his words
were as morsels of ice, “if it were any other
man who spoke of my wife and dishonor in
the same breath I would kill him where he
stood; but ye are the oldest and faithfullest
follower of our house. For the work ye have
done and the risks ye have run I pardon you
so far as to hear any excuse ye have to make
for yourself; but make it plain and make it
quick, for ye know I am not a man to be
trifled with.”
“I will speak plainly, my lord, though they
be the hardest words I have ever had to say.
I ken the risk. It is not the first time I have
taken my life in my hand for the Grahams
and their good name. My suspicions were
aroused by that little besom Kirsty, when I
saw her ane day comin’ oot from the quarters
of Colonel Livingstone, wha commands the
dragoons at Dundee. I kent she could be
doing nae good there, for she’s as full o’ mischief
235
as an egg is full o’ meat. So I wheeped
up by the near road and met her coming up
to the castle. When she saw me she hid a letter
in her breast, and, question her as I like,
I could get nothing from her but impudence.
But it was plain to me that communication
was passing between someone in Dudhope and
the commander o’ William’s soldiers.”
“Go on,” said Dundee quietly.
“Putting two and two together, my lord,
I watched in the orchard below the castle that
nicht and the next, and on the next, when it
was dark, a man muffled in a cloak came up
the road from the town and waited below the
apple trees, near where I was lying in the
hollow among the grass. After a while a
woman in a plaid so that ye couldna see her
face came down from the direction of the
castle. They drew away among the trees, so
that I could only see that they were there, but
couldna hear what they were saying. After
a while, colloguing together, they parted, and
I jaloused who the two were, but that nicht
I could not be certain.”
“Go on,” said Dundee, “till you have finished.”
“Three nichts later they met again, and I
crept a little nearer, and the moon coming out
for a minute I saw their faces. It was her
236
ladyship and Colonel Livingstone. She was
pleading wi’ him, and he was half yielding,
half consenting. Her voice was so low I
couldna catch her words, but I heard him say:
‘God knows ye have my heart; but my honor,
my honor.’ ‘I will be content wi’ your heart,’
I heard her answer. ‘When will you be
ready? For if Dundee hear of it, he will ride
south night and day, tho’ the whole English
army be in his road!’
“‘For eight days,’ said Livingstone, ‘I
am engaged on duty and can do nothing, on
the ninth I am at your service for ever.’
Then I saw him kiss her hand, and they
parted. Within an hour I was riding north.
Ye may shoot me if you please, but I have
cleared my conscience.”
Dundee’s face was white as death, and his
eyes glittered as when the light shines on
steel. Twice he laid his hand upon his pistol,
and twice withdrew it.
“If an angel from heaven told me that
Lady Dundee was untrue I would not believe
him, and you, you I take to be rather a devil
from hell. Said Livingstone eight days?
And two are passed. I was proposing to go
south for other ends, and now I shall not fail
to be there before that appointment. But it
may be, Grimond, I shall have to kill you.”
237
Dundee was a man of many trials, and one
on whom fortune seldom smiled; but the most
cruel days of his life were the ride from Inverness
by the Pass of Corryarrack to Blair
Athole, and from Blair Athole by Perth to
Dundee. He learned then, as many men have
done in times of their distress, the horror of
the night time and the blessing of the light.
Had his mind not been affected by the universal
treachery of the time, and the disappointments
he had met on every side, till it
seemed that every man except himself was
hunting after his own interest, and no one,
high or low, could be trusted, he had from
the beginning treated Grimond’s story with
contempt and made it a subject of jest. He
would no more have doubted Jean’s honor
than that of his mother. He would have
known that Grimond never lied, and that he
did not often drink, but he also would have
been sure that even if it was Jean who met
238
Livingstone, that there was some good explanation,
and he never would have allowed
his thoughts to dwell upon the matter. If
Jean had been told that Graham had been
seen with a lady of the Court at Whitehall,
she would have scorned to question him, and
indeed she had often laughed at the snares
certain frail beauties of that day had laid
for him in London. For she knew him, and
he also knew her. But he was sorely tried
in spirit and driven half crazy by the disloyalty
of his friends, and it is in those circumstances
of morbid, unhealthy feeling that the
seeds of suspicion find a root and grow, as
the microbes settle upon susceptible and disordered
organs of the body.
As it was, he was divided in his mind, and
it was the alternation of dark and bright
moods which made his agony. Spring had
only reached the Highlands as he rode southwards,
but its first touches had made everything
winsome and beautiful. While patches
of snow lingered on the higher hills, and glittered
in the sunlight, the grass in the hollows
between the heather was putting on the first
greenness of the season, and the heather was
sprouting bravely; the burns were full-bodied
with the melting snow from the higher levels
and rushing with a pleasant noise to join the
239
river. As he came down from the bare uplands
at Dalnaspidal into the sheltered glen
at Blair Castle, the trees made an arch of the
most delicate emerald over his head, for the
buds were beginning to open, and the wind
blew gently upon his face. The sight of
habitations as he came nearer to the Lowlands,
the sound of the horses’ feet upon the
road, the gayety of his band of troopers, the
children playing before their humble cottages,
the exhilarating air, and the hope of
the season when winter was gone, told upon
his heart and reënforced him. The despair
of the night before, when he tossed to and
fro upon a wretched bed or paced up and
down before the farmhouse door, imagining
everything that was horrible, passed away as
a nightmare. Was there ever such madness
as that he, John Graham, should be doubting
his wife, Jean Cochrane, whom he had won
from the midst of his enemies, and who had
left her mother and her mother’s house to be
his bride? How brave she had been, how self-sacrificing,
how uncomplaining, how proud
in heart and high in spirit; she had given up
the whole world for him; she was the bravest
and purest of ladies. That his wife of those
years of storm and the mother a few weeks
ago of his child should forget her vows and
240
her love, and condescend to a base intrigue;
that she should meet a lover in the orchard
where they often used to walk, where the
blossom would now be opening on the trees,
that Livingstone, whom he knew and counted
in a sense a friend, though he held King William’s
commission now, and had not stood by
the right side, should take the opportunity of
his absence to seduce his wife! It was a
hideous and incredible idea, some mad mistake
which could be easily explained. Dundee,
throwing off his black and brooding burden
of thought, would touch his horse with
the spur and gallop for a mile in gayety of
heart and then ride on his way, singing some
Cavalier song, till Grimond, who kept away
from his master those days and rode among
the troopers, would shake his head, and say
to himself, “God grant he be not fey” (possessed).
Dundee would continue in high
spirits till the evening shadows began to fall,
and then the other shadow would lengthen
across his soul. The night before he met his
wife he spent in Glamis Castle, and the grim,
austere beauty of that ancient house affected
his imagination. Up its winding stairs with
their bare, stern walls men had gone in their
armor, through the thickness of the outer
walls secret stairs connected mysterious
241
chambers one with another. Strange deeds
had been done in those low-roofed rooms with
their dark carved furniture, and there were
secret places in the castle where ghosts of the
past had their habitation. Weird figures
were said to flit through the castle at night,
restless spirits which revisited the scene of
former tragedies and crimes, and the room
in which Graham slept was known to be
haunted. Alas! he needed no troubled ancestor
of the Strathmore house to visit him, for
his own thoughts were sufficient torment, and
through the brief summer night and then
through the dawning light of the morning
he threshed the question which gnawed his
heart. Evil suggestions and suspicious remembrances
of the past, which would have
fled before the sunlight, surrounded him and
looked out at him from the shadow with gibbering
faces. Had he not been told that Jean
laid traps for him in Paisley that she might
secure the safety of her lover Pollock, and
also of her kinsman, Sir John Cochrane?
Had she not often spoken warmly of that
Covenanting minister and expressed her bitter
regret that her husband had compassed
Pollock’s death? She had tried to keep him
from attending the Convention, and of late
days had often suggested that he had better
242
be at peace and not stir up the country.
After all, can you take out of the life what is
bred in the bone?––and Jean Cochrane was of
a Covenanting stock, and her mother a very
harridan of bigotry. Might there not have
been some sense in the fear of his friends
that he would no longer be loyal to the good
cause, and was Jock Grimond’s grudge
against his marriage mere stupidity and jealousy?
Everyone was securing his safety
and adjusting himself to the new regime;
there was hardly a Lowland gentleman who
had irretrievably pledged himself to King
James, and as for the chiefs, they would fight
for their own hand as they had always done,
and could only be counted on for one thing,
and that was securing plunder. Was not he
alone, and would not he soon be either on the
scaffold or an exile? The Whigs would soon
be reigning in their glory over Scotland, and
it would be well with everyone that had their
password. If he were out of the way, would
there not be a strong temptation for her to
make terms with her family and buy security
by loyalty to their side? No doubt she was a
strong woman, but, after all, she was only a
woman, and was she able to stand alone and
live forsaken at Glenogilvie, with friends
neither among Cavaliers nor Covenanters?
243
Could he blame her if she separated herself
from a ruined cause and a discredited husband,
for would she not be only doing what
soldiers and courtiers had done, what everybody
except himself was doing? Why should
she, a young woman with life before her, tie
herself up with a hopeless cause, and one
who might be called commander-in-chief of
James’s army, but who had nothing to show
for it but a handful of reckless troopers and
a few hundred Highland thieves, a man
whom all sensible people would be regarding
as a mad adventurer? Would it not be a
stroke of wisdom––the Whigs were a cunning
crew, and he recalled that Lord Dundonald
was an adroit schemer––to buy the future
for herself and her child by selling him
and returning to her old allegiance? There
was enough reality in this ghost to give it,
as it were, a bodily shape, and Graham, who
had been flinging himself about, struck out
with his fist as if at flesh and blood.
“Damn you, begone, begone!”
For a while he lay quietly and made as
though he would have slept. Then the ghosts
began to gather around his bed again as if
the Covenanters he had murdered had come
from the other world and were having their
day of vengeance. It must have been Jean
244
who met Livingstone in the orchard, and it
must have been an assignation. There was
no woman in Dudhope had her height and
carriage, and the vision of her proud face
that he had loved so well brought scalding
tears to his eyes. For what purpose had she
met Livingstone, if not to arrange some base
surrender, if not to give information about
him so that MacKay might find him more
easily? Was it worse than that, if worse
could be when all was black as hell? Livingstone
had known her for years; it had been
evident that he admired her; he was an attractive
man of his kind. Nothing was more
likely in that day, when unlawful love was
not a shame, but a boast, than that he had
been making his suit to Lady Dundee. Her
husband was away, likely never to return;
she was a young and handsome woman, and
Livingstone had time upon his hands at Dundee.
A month ago he had sworn that the virtue
of his wife was unassailable as that of
the Blessed Virgin; he would have sworn it
two days ago as he rode through Killiecrankie;
but now, with the brooding darkness round
him and its awful shapes peopling the room,
he was not sure of anything that was good
and true. Had he not lived at Court, had he
not known the great ladies, had not they
245
tried to seduce him, and flung themselves at
his head? Was not Jean a woman like the
rest, and why should his wife be faithful
when every other woman of rank was an
adulteress! This, then, was the end of it
all, and he had suffered the last stroke of
treachery, and the last stain of dishonor.
How he had been befooled and bewitched;
what an actress she had been, with a manner
that would have deceived the wisest!
What a stupid, blundering fool he had been!
There are times, the black straits of life,
when a man must either pray or curse. If
he be a saint he will pray, but Dundee was
not a saint, so he rose from his bed, and
sweeping away the evil shapes from before
him with his right arm, and then with his
left, as one makes his road through high-standing
corn that closes in behind him, he
raged from side to side of the room in which
the day was faintly breaking, while unaccustomed
oaths poured from his mouth. One
thing only remained for him, and at the
thought peace began to come. He had
planned weeks ago to visit Dundee again and
give the chance to Livingstone’s dragoons to
join him, for he had reason to believe that
they were not unalterably loyal. He was on
his way to Dundee now, and to-morrow he
246
would be there, but he cared little what the
dragoons would do; he had other folk to deal
with. If he found he had been betrayed at
home, and by her who had lain on his breast,
and by a man whom he had counted his friend,
they should know the vengeance of the Grahams.
“Both of them––both of them to hell,
and then my work is done and I shall go to
see them!”
It was characteristic of the man that,
though he had no assistance from Grimond
in the morning––for Jock dared not go near
him––Dundee appeared in perfect order, even
more carefully dressed than usual; but as he
rode from the door of Glamis Castle through
the beautiful domain of park and wood,
Grimond was aghast at his pinched and
drawn face and the gleam in his eye. “May
the Lord hae mercy, but I doot sairly that
he is aff his head, and that there will be wild
work at Dudhope.” And while Grimond
had all the imperturbable self-satisfaction
and unshaken dourness of the Lowland Scot,
and never on any occasion acknowledged that
he could be wrong or changed his way, he
almost wished that he had left this affair
alone and had not meddled between his master
and his master’s wife. It was again a
fair and sunny day, when the freshness of
247
spring was feeling the first touch of summer,
as Dundee and his men rode up the pass
through the hills from Strathmore to Dundee.
There were times when Graham would
have breathed his horse at the highest point,
from which you are able to look down upon
the sea, and drunk in the pure, invigorating
air, and gazed at the distant stretches of the
ocean. But he had no time to lose that day;
he had work to do without delay. With all
his delirium––and Graham’s brain was hot,
and every nerve tingling––he retained the instincts
of a soldier, and just because he was
so suspicious of his reception he took the more
elaborate precautions. Before he entered the
pass his scouts made sure that he would not
be ambuscaded, for it might be that his approach
was known, and that Livingstone,
taking him at a disadvantage in the narrow
way, by one happy stroke would complete his
triumph. As he came near Dundee, he sent
out a party to reconnoitre, while he remained
with his troop to watch events. When the
sound of firing was heard he knew that the
garrison was on the alert, and that the town
could only be taken by assault. The soldiers
came galloping back with several wounded
men, having left one dead. Livingstone was
for the moment safe in his fastness, and it was
248
evident that the dragoons were not in a mind
to desert their colors. By this time it would
be known at Dudhope that he was near, and
the sooner he arrived the more chance of
finding his wife. It was possible that Livingstone
had garrisoned Dudhope, and that if
he rode forward alone he might be snared.
But this risk he would take in the heat of
his mind, and summoning Grimond with a
stern gesture to his side, and ordering the
soldiers to follow at a slight interval and to
surround the castle, he galloped forward to
the door. The place appeared to be deserted,
but at last, in answer to his knocking, as he
beat on the door with the hilt of his sword, it
was opened by an old woman who seemed the
only servant left, and who was driven speechless
by her master’s unexpected appearance
and his wild expression. For, although John
Graham had been a stern as well as just and
kind master, and although he had often been
angry, and was never to be trifled with, no
one had ever seen him before other than cool
and calm, smooth-spoken and master of himself.
“What means it, Janet, or whatever be
your name, that the door was barred and I
kept standing outside my own house? What
were ye doing, and who is within the walls?
249
Speak out, and quickly, or I will make you do
it at your pain. Have the dragoons been here,
and are there any hid in this place? Is my
Lady Dundee in the castle, and if so, where
is she?” And then, when the panic-stricken
woman could not find intelligible words before
the unwonted fury of her master, he
pushed her aside and, rushing up the stair,
tore open the door of the familiar room
where Jean and he usually sat––to find that
she was not there nor anywhere else in the
castle, that his wife and the child were gone.
With this confirmation of his worst fears,
his fever left him suddenly, and he came to
himself, so far as the action of his mind and
the passion of his manner were concerned.
Sending for Janet, he expressed his regret,
with more than his usual courtesy, that he
had spoken roughly to her and for the moment
had frightened her. Something, he
said, had vexed him, but now she must not be
afraid, but must tell him some things that he
wished to know. Had everything been going
well at Dudhope since he left, and had her
ladyship and my little lord been in good
health? That was excellent. He hoped that
the dragoons had not been troublesome or
come about the castle? They had not? Well,
that was satisfactory. Their commander,
250
Colonel Livingstone, perhaps had called to
pay his respects to Lady Dundee, and render
any kindness he could? No, never been seen
at the castle? That was strange. Her ladyship––where
had she gone, for she did not appear
to be in the castle, nor her maid nor the
other servants? Where were they all? Had
her ladyship taken refuge in Dundee for
safety in those troubled times? And as his
master asked this question with studied calmness
and the gentlest of accents, Grimond
shuddered, for this was the heart of the matter,
and there was murder in the answer.
Not to Dundee––where then? To Glenogilvie,
only last night in great haste, as if afraid
of someone or something happening. Of
whom, of what? But Janet did not know,
and could only say that Lady Dundee and
the household had formed a sudden plan and
departed at nightfall for the old home of the
Grahams. Whereat Dundee smiled, and,
crossing to a window and looking down upon
the town, said to himself: “A cunning trap.
I was to be taken at Dundee, when in my hot
haste, and thinking I had an easy capture, I
rushed the town without precautions, as I
might have done. While in quiet Glenogilvie
my lady waited for his triumphant coming,
victor and lover. It was a saving mercy, as
251
her people would say, that our scouts drew
their fire and brought out the situation.
They might have baited the trap at Dudhope
had they been cleverer, and I been taken in
my home with her by my side––but that would
have been dangerous. Now it is left for me
to see whether the town could be rushed, and
I have the last joy of one good stroke at
Colonel Livingstone. But if that be beyond
my reach, as I fear it may, then haste me to
Glenogilvie.”
During the day Graham hung about the
outskirts of the town searching for some
weak spot where he could make a successful
entrance with his troopers. Before evening
he was driven to the conclusion that an assault
could only mean defeat and likely his
own death, and he wished to live at least for
another day. So when the sun was setting he
rode away from Dudhope, and on the crest of
the hill that overhangs Dundee, he turned
him in his saddle and looked down on the
castle from which he had ruled the town, and
where he had spent many glad days with
Jean. The shadows of evening were now
gathering, and when he reached the home of
his boyhood in secluded Glenogilvie the night
had fallen. It was contrary to his pride to
practise any tactics in his own country, and
252
they rode boldly to the door from which he
had gone out and in so often in earlier, happier
days. They had been keeping watch, he
noticed, for lights shifted in the rooms as
they came near, and almost as soon as he had
crossed the threshold his wife came out from
her room to greet him. He marked in that
instant that, though she was startled to see
him, and had not looked for him so soon, she
showed no sign of confusion or of guilt.
Against his will he admired the courage of
her carriage and her dignity in what he
judged a critical hour of her life. It was not
their way to rush into one another’s arms,
though there burned in them the hottest and
fiercest passion of love. In presence of others
they never gave themselves away, but carried
themselves with a stately grace. “We heard
you were on your way, my lord,” she simply
said, “but I did not expect so quick a meeting.
Have ye come from the north or from
Perth? A messenger went to Lord Perth’s
house with news of the happenings at Dundee,
but doubtless he missed you.” She gave
him her hand, over which he bent, and which
he seemed to kiss, but did not. “We left
Perth two days ago,” he replied, with a cold,
clear voice, which did not quite hide the
underlying emotion, “and we have this day
253
paid our visit to Dundee––to get a chill welcome
and find Dudhope empty. It was a pity
that we missed the messenger, Lady Dundee,
who doubtless sought for us diligently, for
if we had known where you were when we
left Glamis this morning, it had been easy––aye,
and in keeping with my mind––to turn
aside and visit Glenogilvie.” They were
still standing in the hall, and Jean had begun
to realize that Dundee was changed, and
that behind this cold courtesy some fire was
burning. When they were alone she would,
in other circumstances, have cast herself in
the proud surrender of a strong woman’s
love into his arms, and he would have kissed
her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks,
her chin, and, last, her mouth; but at the sight
of his eyes she stood apart, and straightening
herself, Jean said: “What is the meaning of
this look, John, and what ails you? Ye seem
as if ye had suffered some cruel blow. Has
aught gone wrong with you? Ye have come
back in hot haste.”
“Yes, my Lady Dundee, something wrong
with me, and maybe worse with you. I have
come quicker than I intended, and have had
a somewhat cold reception at Dundee, but I
grant you that was not your blame, you had
254
doubtless prepared a warmer. Livingstone
was the laggard.”
“You are angry, John, and I now understand
the cause. It was not my blame, for
what woman could do I did, and maybe more
than becometh your wife, to win him over. He
almost consented, and I declare to you that
Livingstone is with us. I could have sworn
two days ago that the regiment would have
joined us and been waiting for you. But that
determined Whig, Captain Balfour, discovered
the plot, and I had a message yesterday
afternoon that it was hopeless. So for fear
of arrest I hurried to Glenogilvie, and tried to
intercept your coming. Blame not me, for I
could do no more––and what mean you by calling
me ever by my title and not by my name,
after our parting for so long and dangerous a
time?”
“You are right, Jean Cochrane, and I will
do you this justice, ye could not do more
than meet him in the orchard and in the dark
of the night. Yes, ye were both seen, and
word was brought me to the north by a faithful
messenger––I judge the only true heart
left. That was fine doing and fine pleading,
when he confessed that you had won his
heart, but his honor was hindering him. Ye
cannot deny the words, they are graven on
255
my heart like fire, and are burning it to the
core. You, my wife, and whom I made my
Lady Dundee, as if you had been a lowborn
country lass.”
“You are unjust, my lord, shamefully and
cruelly unjust. It was not a pleasant thing
for me to do, and I hated myself in the stooping
to do it, but there was no other way for
it, since he dared not come in the daylight,
and I dared not go to him. Now I wish to
God I had never troubled myself and never
lifted my little finger to accomplish this thing
for the cause, since spies have been going
and coming between Dudhope and the north.
What I did, I did for you and King James,
and if I had succeeded ye would have praised
me and said that a woman’s wiles had won a
regiment of horse. But because I have failed
ye fling my poor effort in my face, and make
me angry with myself that I ever tried to
serve you––you who stand here reproaching
me for my condescension.”
“Well acted, my lady, and a very cunning
tale. So it was to serve me ye crept out at
night disguised, and it was to win his heart
for King James that ye spoke so tenderly?
I never expected the day would come when
John Graham of Claverhouse would call
down blessings––aye, the richest benediction
256
of heaven––upon a Covenanter, but I pray
God to bless Captain Balfour with all things
that he desires in this world and in that which
is to come. Because, though he knew not
what he was doing, and might have served
his own cause better by letting things run
their course, he saved, at least in the eyes of
the world, my honor, and averted the public
shame of a treacherous wanton.”
As the words fell slowly and quietly from
his lips, like drops of vitriol, Jean’s face reflected
the rapid succession of emotions in
her heart. She was startled as one not grasping
the meaning of his words: she was horrified
as their shameful charge emerged: she
was stricken to the heart as the man she had
loved from out of all the world called her by
the vilest of all names a woman can hear.
Then, being no gentle and timid young wife
who could be crushed by a savage and unexpected
blow and find her relief in a flood of
tears, but a proud and determined woman with
the blood of two ancient houses in her veins,
after the briefest pause she struck back at
Dundee, carrying herself at her full height,
throwing back her head with an attitude of
scorn, her face pale because intense feeling
had called the blood back to the heart, and
her eyes blazing with fury, as when the
257
forked lightning bursts from the cloud and
shatters a house or strikes a living person
dead. And it was like her that she spoke almost
as quietly as Graham, neither shrinking
nor trembling.
“This, then, is the cause of your strange
carriage, Lord Dundee, which I noted on
your coming, and tried to explain in a simple
and honorable way, for I had no key to your
mind, and have not known you for what you
are till this night. So that was the base thing
you have been imagining in your heart, as
you rode through the North Country, and
that was the spur that drave you home with
such haste––to guard your honor as a husband,
and to put to shame an adulterous
wife? Pardon me if I was slow in catching
your meaning, the charge has taken me somewhat
by surprise.” And already, before her
face, Dundee began to weaken and to shrink
for the first time in his life.
“And you are the man whom I, Jean Cochrane,
have loved alone of all men in the world,
and for whose love I forsook my mother and
my house, and became a stranger in the land!
You are the husband whom I trusted utterly,
for whom I was willing to make the last sacrifice
of life, of whom I boasted in my heart,
in whom I placed all my joy! I knew you
258
were a bigot for your cause; I knew you were
cruel in the doing of your work; I knew you
had a merciless ambition; I knew you had
an unmanageable pride; I have not lain in
your arms nor lived by your side, I have not
heard you speak nor seen you act, without
understanding how obstinate is the temper
of your mind, and how fiery is your heart.
For those faults I did not love you less, and
of them I did not complain, for they were
my own also. That you were incapable of
trusting, that you could suspect your wife
of dishonor, that you would be moved by the
report of a spy, a baseborn peasant man,
that you could offer the last gross, unpardonable
insult to a virtuous woman, is what I
never could have even imagined. The Covenanters
called you by many evil names, and
I did not believe them. I believe every one of
them now––they did not tell half the truth.
They called you persecutor and murderer,
they forgot to call you what I now do. As
when one strikes a cur with a whip, so to your
fair, false face I call you liar and coward.
Peace till I be done, and then you may kill
me, for it were better I should not live, and if
I had the sword of one of my kinsfolk here
I would kill you where you stand. God in
heaven, what an accusation! A wife of five
259
years, and a mother of only a few weeks, that
she should sin with an honorable man who is
her friend and her husband’s friend! Did
Livingstone say, according to that dastard
hiding in the wood, that his heart was with us?
That was with our cause, and not with me.
Did he say honor hindered him? That was
not honor towards you, it was honor towards
his colors. But honor is a strange word in
your ears now, my lord. I have never thought
of Livingstone more than any other man who
has a good name and has never betrayed a
trust. This night my heart is favorable to
him, for I saw him in an agony about his
honor, and I judge if he were a woman’s husband,
and she was such a woman as I am before
God this day, he would rather die than
insult her.”
“Ye wished for some weapon wherewith
to take a coward’s life. Here is my sword,
Jean, and here is my heart. I would not be
sorry to die, and I would rather take the last
stroke from you than from my enemies. It is
not worth while to live, for I have no friend,
and soon shall have no possessions. My cause
is forlorn, and my name is a byword, and now,
by my own doing, I have lost my only love.
Strike just here, and my blood will be an
atonement to thee for my sin, and generations
260
unborn will bless the hand which slew Claverhouse.
“Ye hesitate for a moment”––for she was
holding the sword by the hilt, and her face
was still clouded with gloom, although the fire
was dying down. “Then I will use that moment,
not to ask your pardon, for I judge you
are not a woman to forgive––and neither
should I be in your place––but to explain. I
shall not speak of my love for you, for that
now ye will not believe, nor of my shame in
having received those evil thoughts for a
moment into my heart. I have never known
the bitterness of shame before, but I would
fain tell how it happened, that the remembrance
of me be less black after we have
parted forever. Had I been in my natural
state it had been impossible for me to doubt
thee, Jean, and if I had seen thee sin before
mine eyes, I would have thought it was another.
But my mind has been distraught
through weariness of the body on the long
rides, and nights without sleep as I lay a-planning,
and the desertion of friends in whom I
trusted, and the refusals of men of whom I
expected loyalty, and the humiliating helplessness
before William’s general, my old
rival MacKay. I was almost mad. In the
night-time, I think, I was mad altogether.
261
But I had always one comfort, like a single
star shining in a dark sky, and that was the
faithfulness of my wife. When a cloud obscured
that solitary light, then a frenzy passed
into my blood. I ceased to reason, and according
to the measure of my love was my
foolish, groundless hate.”
“Take back your sword, Dundee, for I am
not now minded to use it. Five minutes ago
it had been dangerous to give it me. If ye
fall, it shall be by another hand than your
wife’s, and in another place than your home.
We have said words to one another this night
which neither of us will lightly pardon, for
we are not of the pardoning kind. I do not
feel as I did: my anger has turned into sorrow;
the idol of my idolatry is broken––my
fair model of chivalry––and now I can only
gather together the pieces. Even while I
hated you I was loving you––this is the contradiction
of a woman’s heart––and I knew
that love of me had made you mad. Whatever
happens, I will always remember that
you loved me, but my dream has vanished––forever.”
They spent next day walking quietly in the
glen, and the following morning he left for
his last campaign. They said farewell alone,
but after he was in the saddle Lady Dundee
262
lifted up the child for him to kiss––which was
to die before the year was out. He turned as
they were riding down the road and waved
his plumed hat to his wife, where she stood,
still holding the child in her arms. And that
was the last Jean Cochrane saw of Claverhouse.
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BOOK IV — CHAPTER I — TREASON IN THE CAMP — CHAPTER II — VISIONS OF THE NIGHT — CHAPTER III — FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
Since the day Dundee rode away from
Glenogilvie, after the scene with Jean, he was
a man broken in heart, but he hid his private
wound bravely, and gave himself with the
fiercer energy to the king’s business. Hither
and thither through the Highlands he raced,
so that he was described in letters of that
day as “skipping from one hill to another
like wildfire, which at last will vanish of itself
for want of fuel,” and “like an incendiary
to inflame that cold country, yet he
finds small encouragement.” Anything more
pathetic than this last endeavor of Dundee,
except it be his death, cannot be imagined.
The clans were not devoured with devotion to
King James, and were not the victims of
guileless enthusiasm; they were not the heroes
of romance depicted by Jacobite poets
and story-tellers: they were half-starved, entirely
ignorant, fond of fighting, but largely
intent on stealing. If there was any chance
264
of a foray in which they could gather spoil,
they were ready to fling themselves into the
fray, but as soon as they had gained their
end, they would make for the glens and leave
their general in the lurch. Whether they
would rise or not depended neither on the
merits of William or James, but in the last
issue upon their chiefs––and the chiefs were
not easy to move. Some of them were hostile,
and most of them lukewarm; and Dundee
drank the cup of humiliation as he canvassed
for his cause from door to door. By
pleading, by arguing, by cajoling, by threatening,
by promising and by bribing, he got
together some two thousand men, more or
less, and he had also the remains of his cavalry.
His king had, as usual, left him to
fend for himself, and sent him nothing but
an incapable Irish officer called Cannon and
some ragged Irish recruits, while MacKay
was watching him and following him with a
well-equipped force. Now and again the sun
shone on him and he had glimpses of victory,
driving MacKay for days before him,
and keeping up communication with Livingstone,
who had come from Dundee with his
dragoons, and was playing the part of traitor
in MacKay’s army––for Jean was still determined,
with characteristic obstinacy and indifference
265
to suspicion, to reap the fruit of
her negotiation with Livingstone. It seemed
as if Dundee would at least gain a few troops
of cavalry, which would be a great advantage
to him and a disquieting event for MacKay’s
army. But again the Fates were hostile, and
misfortune dogged the Jacobite cause. MacKay
got wind of the plot, Livingstone and
his fellow-officers were arrested, and Jean’s
scheming, with all its weary expedients and
bitter cost, came to naught.
When Claverhouse, in the height of summer,
started on his last campaign and descended
on Blair Athole, he carried himself
as one in the highest spirits and assured of
triumph. He sent word everywhere that
things were going well with the cause, and
that the whole world was with him; he made
no doubt of crushing MacKay if he opposed
his march into the Lowlands, and of entering
Edinburgh after another fashion than he
had left it. He kept a bold front, and wrote
in a buoyant style; but this was partly the
pride of his house, and partly the tactics of
a desperate leader. Though a bigot to his
cause, Graham was not a madman. He was
a thorough believer in the power of guerrilla
troops, but he knew that in the end they
would go down before the regulars. He
266
hoped, by availing himself of the hot courage
of the clansmen, to deal a smashing blow at
his old rival, but unless the Lowlands and
the regulars joined James’s side, there was
not the remotest chance of unseating William
from his new throne. His words were
high, but his heart was anxious, as he hurried
with his little army to strike once at least for
the king, and to make his last adventure. He
had decided on the line of march to be taken
next morning, and the place where he would
join issue with MacKay, who was coming up
from Perth with a small army of regular
troops, many of whom were veterans. He
had discussed the matter with his staff, and
settled with the jealous and irascible chiefs
as best he could the position they were to take
on the battle-field, and he had fallen into a fit
of gloomy meditation, when Grimond entered
the room in Blair Castle, where Dundee had
his headquarters for the night.
If Grimond, for pure malice or even for
jealousy, had invented that unhappy interview
between Lady Dundee and Livingstone,
or if it had been shown that he had by a word
perverted the conversation, then his master,
who had sent many a Covenanter to death,
because he loved his religion more than King
James, would have shot even that faithful
267
servant without scruple and with satisfaction.
But it was in keeping with the chivalry of
Dundee––his sense of justice, his appreciation
of loyalty, and his admiration for thoroughness––that
he took no revenge for his own
madness upon the unwitting cause thereof.
During the brief stay at Glenogilvie, Grimond
hid himself with discretion, so that neither
his master nor mistress either saw or heard
of him, and when Dundee left his home with
his men, Grimond was not in the company.
But as a dog which is not sure of a welcome
from its master, or rather expects a blow and
yet cannot leave him or let him go alone, will
suddenly join him on the road by which he
is making his journey, and will follow him
distantly, but ever keep him in sight, so Jock
was found one morning among the troopers.
He kept as far from his master as he could
and was careful not to obtrude himself or
offer to resume a servant’s duty. Dundee’s
face hardened at the sight of him, but he
said no word, and Jock made no approach.
With wise discretion he remained at a distance,
and seemed anxious to be forgotten,
but he had his own plan of operations. One
morning Dundee found his bits and stirrups
and the steel work of his horse furnishing
polished and glittering as they had not been
268
since he rode to Glenogilvie, and he suspected
that an old hand had been at work.
Another day his cuirass was so well and carefully
done, his uniform so perfectly brushed
and laid out, and his lace cravat so skilfully
arranged that he was certain Grimond was
doing secret duty. Day by day the signs of
his attention grew more frequent and visible,
till at last one morning he appeared in person,
and without remark began to assist his
master with his arms. Nothing passed between
them, and for weeks relations were very
strained, but before the end Grimond knew
that he had been forgiven for his superfluity
of loyalty, and Dundee was thankful that, as
the shadows settled upon his life blacker and
deeper every day, one honest man was his
companion, and would remain true when
every fair-weather friend and false schemer
had fled. One can make excuses for jealousy
when it is another name for love; one may
not quarrel with doggedness when it is another
name for devotion. There are not too
many people who have in them the heart to
be faithful unto death, not too many who will
place one’s interest before their own life.
When one’s back is at the wall, and he is not
sure even of his nearest, he will not despise
or quarrel with the roughest or plainest man
269
who will stand by his side and share his lot,
either of life or death. So Jock was reinstated
without pardon asked or given, and
with no reference to the tragedy of Glenogilvie,
and Dundee knew that he had beside
him a faithful and fearless watchdog of the
tough old Scottish breed. As Grimond busied
himself with preparations for the evening
meal––among other dark suspicions he had
taken into his head that Dundee might be
poisoned––his master’s eye fell on him, and
at the sight memory woke. John Graham recalled
the days when Grimond received him
from the charge of his nurse, and took him
out upon the hills round Glenogilvie. How
he taught him to catch trout with his own
hands below the big stones of the burn, how
he told him the names of the wild birds and
their ways, how he gave him his first lesson
in sport, how one day he saved his life, when
he was about to be gored by an infuriated
bull. All the kindness of this hard man and
his thoughtfulness, all his faithfulness and
unselfishness, touched Dundee’s heart––a
heart capable of affection for a few, though
it could never be called tender, and capable
of sentiment, though rather that which is
bound up with a cause than with a person.
“Jock,” said Graham, with a certain accent
270
of former days and kindly doings. Now,
a person’s name may mean anything according
to the way in which it is pronounced. It
may be an accusation, a rebuke, an insult, a
threat, or it may be an appeal, a thanksgiving,
a benediction, a caress. And at the
sound of the word, said more kindly than he
had ever heard it, Grimond turned him round
and looked at his master; his grim, lean,
weather-beaten face relaxed and softened
and grew almost gentle.
“Maister John, Maister John,” and suddenly
he did a thing incredible for his undemonstrative,
unsentimental, immovable
granite nature. He knelt down beside Dundee,
and seizing his hand, kissed it, while
tears rolled down his cheeks. “My laddie,
and my lord, baith o’ them, this is the best
day o’ my life, for ye’ve forgiven me my terrible
mistake, and my sin against my mistress.
It’s sore against my grain to confess
that I was wrang, for it’s been my infirmity
to be always richt, but I sinned in this matter
grievously, and micht have done what could
never be put richt. But oh! my lord, it was
a’ for love’s sake, for though I be only a
serving man to the house of Graham, I dare
to say I have been faithful. With neither
wife nor child, I have nothing but you, my
271
lord, and I have nothing to live for but your
weel. When ye were angry wi’ me I didna
blame you, I coonted ye just, but ’twas to me
as when the sun gaes behind the clouds. I
cared neither to eat nor drink––had it not been
for your sake, I didna care to live. But noo,
when ye’ve buried the past and taken me
back into your favor, I’m in the licht again,
and I carena what happens to me, neither
hardship nor death. Oh! my loved lord, will
ye call me Jock again? When the severe
and self-contained Lowland Scot takes fire,
there is such strength of fuel in him, that he
burns into white heat, and there is no quenching
of the flame. And at that moment Graham
understood, as he had only imagined before,
the passion which can be concealed in
the heart of a Scots retainer.
“Get up, Jock, you old fool and––my
trusty friend.” Claverhouse concealed but
poorly behind his banter the emotion of his
heart, for Jock had found him in a lonely
mood.
“You and me are no made for kneeling,
except to our Maker and our king. Faith, I
judge we are better at the striking. Aye, we
are friends again, and shall be till the end,
which I am thinking may not be far off. Ye
gave me a bitter time, the like of which I
272
never had before, and beside which death,
when it comes, will be welcome, but ye did it
not in baseness, but in all honesty. It was
our calamity. Life, Jock, is full o’ sic calamities,
and we are all for the maist part at cross
purposes. It seemeth to me as if we were
travelling in the darkness, knowing not
whether the man beside us be friend or foe,
and often striking at our friends by mistake.
But we must march on till the day breaks.
“It’ll break for us soon, at any rate,” went
on Dundee, “for by to-morrow night the
matter will be settled between General MacKay
and me. Div ye mind, Jock, how I fain
would have fought with him at The Hague,
and he wouldna take my challenge?”
“Cowardly and cold-blooded Whig like the
lave o’ them,” burst out Jock, in a strong reaction
from his former mood of tenderness.
“Leave him to look after himsel’, he micht
have stood mair nor once thae last weeks and
faced ye like a man, but would he? Na, na,
he ran afore ye, and I doot sair whether he
will give you a chance to-morrow.”
“Have no fear of that, Jock, we’ve waited
long for our duel, but, ye may take my word
for it, it will come off at Killiecrankie before
the sun goes down again behind the hills.
There will be a fair field and a free fight, and
273
the best man will win; and, Jock, I will not
be sorry when the sun sets. What ails you,
Jock, for your face is downcast? That didna
used to be the way with you in the low country
on the prospect of battle. Div ye mind
Seneffe and the gap in the wall?”
“Fine, my lord, fine, and I’ll acknowledge
that I’ve nae rooted objection in principle or
in practice to fechtin’––that is, when it’s to
serve a richt cause and there be a good chance
o’ victory, to say nothing o’ profit. But a’
thing maun be fair and aboveboard, and I’m
dootin’ whether that will be the case the
mornin’. What I’m feared o’ is no war, but
black murder.” And there was an earnestness
in Grimond’s tone which arrested Dundee.
“My lord,” said Jock, in answer to the interrogation
on his master’s face, “I came
here to speak, if Providence gave me the
chance, for aifter all that has happened, I
didna consider your ear would be open to
hear me. When a man has made as big a
mistake as I have dune, and caused as muckle
sorrow, it behooves him to walk softly, and
this is pairt of his judgment that them he
loves most may trust him least.
“Na, na, my lord,” for the face of Dundee
was beginning again to blacken. “I’ve
274
no a word to say against her ladyship. I
gather she has been doing what she can for
the cause wi’ them slippery rascals o’ dragoons
and their Laodicean commander, of
whom I have my ain thoughts. I fear me,
indeed, to say what I have found, and what
I am suspecting, for ye hae reason to conclude
that my head is full o’ plots, and that
broodin’ ower treachery has made me daft.”
“What is it now, Jock?” in a tone between
amusement and seriousness. “Ye
havena found a letter from Lochiel to the
Prince of Orange, offering to win the reward
upon my head, or caught General MacKay,
dressed in a ragged kilt, stealing about through
the army? Out with it, and let us know the
worst at once.”
“Ye are laughin’, Maister John, and I will
not deny ye have justification. I wish to God
I be as far frae the truth this time as I was
last time, but there is some thin’ gaein’ on in
the camp that bodes nae gude to yersel’, and
through you to the cause. It was not for naethin’
I watched two of our new recruits for
days, and heard a snap o’ their conversation
yesterday on the march.”
“I’ll be bound, Jock, ye heard some wild
talk, for I doubt our men are readier with an
oath than a Psalm and a loose story than a
275
sermon. But we must just take them as they
come––rough men for rough work, and desperate
men for a wild adventure.”
“Gude knows, my ears are weel accustomed
to the clatter of the camp, and it’s no a coarse
word here or there would offend Jock Grimond.
But the men I mean are of the other
kind; they speak like gentlefolk, and micht,
for the manner o’ them, sit wi’ her ladyship
in Dudhope Castle.”
“Broken gentlemen, very likely, Jock.
There have always been plenty in our ranks.
Surely you are not going to make that a crime
at this time of the day. If I had five hundred
of that kidney behind me, I would drive MacKay––horse,
foot and bits of artillery––like
chaff before the wind. A gentleman makes a
good trooper, and when he has nothing to lose,
he’s the very devil to fight.”
“But that’s no a’ else. I wouldna have
troubled you, my lord, but the two are aye
the-gither, and keep in company like a pair
o’ dogs poachin’. They have the look o’ men
who are on their gaird, and are feared o’
bein’ caught by surprise. According to their
story they had served with Livingstone’s dragoons,
and had come over to us because they
were for the good cause. But ain o’ Livingstone’s
lads wha deserted at the same time,
276
and has naethin’ wrong wi’ him except that
he belongs to Forfar and has a perpetual
drouth, tells me that our twa friends were
juist in and oot, no mair than a week wi’ the
dragoons. My idea is that they went wi’
Livingstone to get to us. And what for––aye,
what for?”
“For King James, I should say, and a
bellyful of fighting,” said Dundee carelessly.
“Maybe ye’re richt, and if so, there’s no
mischief done; and maybe ye’re wrang, and
if so, there will be black trouble. At ony rate,
I didna like the story, and I wasna taken wi’
the men. No that they’re bad-lookin’, but
they’re after some ploy. Weel, they ride by
themsel’s, and they camp by themsel’s, and
they eat by themsel’s, and they sleep by themsel’s.
So this midday, when we haltit, they
made off to the bank o’ the river, and settled
themsel’s ablow a tree, and by chance a burn
ran into the river there wi’ a high bank on the
side next them. Are ye listenin’, my lord?”
“Yes, yes,” said Dundee, whose thoughts
had evidently been far away, and who was
attaching little importance to Jock’s groundless
fears. “Go on. So you did a bit of
scouting, I suppose?”
“I did,” said Jock, with some pride, “and
they never jaloused wha was lying close beside
277
them, like a tod (fox) in his hole. I’m
no prepared to say that I could catch a’ their
colloguing, but I got enough to set me thinkin’.
Juist bits, but they could be pieced togither.”
“Well,” said Dundee, with more interest,
“what were the bits?”
“The one asks the other where he keeps
his pass. ‘Sown in the lining of my coat,’
says he. ‘Where’s yours?’ ‘In my boot,’
answers he, ‘the safest place.’ Who gave
them the passes, thinks I to myself, and what
are they hiding them for? So I cocks both
my ears to hear the rest.”
“And what was that, Jock?” And Dundee
now was paying close attention.
“For a while they spoke so low I could
only hear, ‘This underhand work goes against
my stomach.’ ‘Aha, my lad, so it’s underhand,’
says I in my hole. ‘It’s worth the
doing,’ says the other, ‘and a big stroke of
work if we succeed. It might be a throne
one way or other.’ ‘Not to us,’ laughs the
first. ‘No,’ says his friend, ‘but we’ll have
our share.’ ‘This is no ordinary work,’ says
I to mysel’, and I risked my ears out of the
hole. ‘It’s no an army,’ says one o’ them,
‘but juist a rabble, and a’ depends on one
man.’ ‘You’re right there,’ answers the
other, ‘if he falls all is over.’ Then they said
278
something to one another I couldn’t catch,
and then one stretched himself, as I took it
by his kicking a stone into the river, and rose,
saying, ‘By heaven! we’ll manage it.’ The
other laughed as he rose too, and as they
went away the last words I heard were, ‘The
devil, Jack, is more likely to be our friend.’
Notice this, my lord, every word in the English
tongue, as fine and smooth spoken as ye
like. Where did they come from, and what
are they after? Aye, and wha is to fall,
that’s the question, my lord?”
Dundee started, for Jock’s story had unloosed
a secret fear in his mind, which he
had often banished, but which had been returning
with great force. As a band holds
together the sheaf of corn, so he alone kept
King James’s army. Apart from him there
was no cohesion, and apart from him there
was no commander. With his death, not only
would the forces disperse, but the cause of
King James would be ended. If he were out
of the way, William would have no other
cause for anxiety, and he knew the determined
and cold-blooded character of his former
master. William had given him his
chance, and he had not taken it. He would
have no more scruple in assassinating his opponent
than in brushing a fly off the table.
279
Instead of gathering an army and fighting
him through the Highlands and Lowlands,
just one stroke of a dirk or a pistol bullet
and William is secure on his throne. “Jock
may be right for once,” said Claverhouse to
himself, “and, by heaven! if I am to fall, I
had rather be shot in front than behind.”
He wrote an order to the commander of the
cavalry, and in fifteen minutes the two
troopers were standing before him disarmed
and guarded.
The moment Dundee looked at them he
knew that Jock was correct in saying that
they were not common soldiers, for they had
the unmistakable manner of gentlemen, and
as soon as they spoke he also knew that they
were Englishmen. One was tall and fair,
with honest blue eyes, which did not suggest
treachery, the other was shorter and dark,
with a more cautious and uncertain expression.
“For certain reasons, gentlemen,” said
Dundee, with emphasis upon the word, “I
desire by your leave to ask you one or two
questions. If you will take my advice, you
had better answer truthfully. I will not
waste time about things I know. What
brought you from Livingstone’s dragoons to
us? why were ye so short a time with them?
280
and why did ye leave the English army? Tell
no lies, I pray you. I can see that ye are soldiers
and have been officers. Why are you
with us in the guise of troopers?”
“You know so much, my lord,” said the
taller man, with that outspoken candor which
is so taking, “that I may as well tell you all.
We have held commissions in the army, and
are, I suppose, officers to-day, though they
will be wondering where we are, and we should
be shot if we were caught. You will excuse
me giving our names, for they could not be
easily kept. We belong to families which have
ever been true to their king, and we came
north to take a share in the good work. That
is the only way that we could manage it, and
we do not fancy it overmuch, but we have
taken our lives in our hands for the adventure.”
“You are men of spirit, I can see,” said
Dundee ironically, “but ye are wise men also,
and have reduced your risks. Would you do
me the favor of showing the passes with which
you provided yourselves before leaving England?
Save yourselves the trouble of––argument.
One of you has got his pass in his coat,
and the other in his boot. I’m sure you would
not wish to be stripped.”
The shorter man colored with vexation and
281
then paled, but the other only laughed like a
boy caught in a trick, and said, “There are
quick eyes, or, more likely, quick ears, in this
army, my lord.” Then, without more ado,
they handed Lord Dundee the passes. “As
I expected,” said Dundee, “to the officers of
King William’s army, and to allow the bearers
to go where they please, and signed by his
Majesty’s secretary of state.” And Dundee
looked at them with a mocking smile.
“Damn those passes!” said the spokesman
with much geniality. “I always thought
we should have destroyed them once we were
safely through the other lines, but my friend
declared they might help us afterwards in
time of need.”
“And now, gentlemen, they are going to
hang you, for shooting is too honorable for
spies and, worse than spies, assassins, for,”
concluded Dundee softly, “it was to shoot me
you two loyal Cavaliers have come.”
The shorter man was about to protest, in
hope of saving his life, but his comrade waved
him to be silent, and for the last time took up
the talk.
“We are caught in a pretty coil, my lord.
Circumstances are against us, and we have
nothing to put on the other side, except our
word of honor as gentlemen. Neither my
comrade nor I are going to plead for our
282
lives, though we don’t fancy being hung. But
perhaps of your courtesy, if we write our
names, you will allow a letter to go to General
MacKay, and that canting Puritan will
be vastly amused when he learns that he had
hired us to assassinate my Lord Dundee. He
will be more apt to consider our execution an
act of judgment for joining the Malignants.
We got our passes by trickery from Lord
Nottingham, and they have tricked us, and,
by the gods! the whole affair is a fine jest, except
the hanging. I would rather it had been
shooting, but I grant that if MacKay had
sent us on such an errand, both he and we deserve
to be hung.” And the Englishman
shrugged his shoulders as one who had said
his last word and accepted his fate.
He carried himself so bravely, with such
an ingenuous countenance and honest speech,
that Claverhouse was interested in the man,
and the reference to MacKay arrested him
in his purpose. They were not likely to have
come on such an errand from MacKay’s
camp without the English general knowing
what they were about. Was MacKay the
man to sanction a proceeding so cowardly
and so contrary to the rules of war? Of all
things in the world, was not this action the
one his principles would most strongly condemn?
Certainly their conversation by the
283
riverside had been suspicious, but then
Grimond had made one hideous mistake before.
It was possible that he had made another.
Graham had insulted his loyal wife
through Grimond’s blundering; it would be
almost as bad if he put to an ignominious
death two adventurous, blundering English
Cavaliers. He ordered that the Englishmen
should be kept under close arrest till next
morning, and he sent the following letter by
a swift messenger and under flag of truce to
the general of the English forces.
Blair Castle, July 26, 1689.
To Major-General Hugh MacKay, Commanding the forces
in the interests of the Prince of Orange.
Sir: It is years since we have met and many things have
happened since, but I freely acknowledge that you have ever
been a good soldier and one who would not condescend
to dishonor. And this being my mind I crave your assistance
in the following matter.
Two English officers have been arrested in disguise and
carrying compromising passes; there is reason to believe
that their errand was to assassinate me, and if this be the
case they shall be hung early to-morrow morning.
Albeit we were rivals in the Low Country and will soon
fight our duel to the death, I am loath to believe that this
thing is true of you, and I will ask of you this last courtesy,
for your sake and mine and that of the two Englishmen,
that ye tell me the truth.
I salute you before we fight and I have the honor to be,
Your most obedient servant,
Dundee.
284
Upon the highest floor of Blair Castle there
was a long and spacious apartment, like unto
the gallery in Paisley Castle, where John
Graham had been married to Jean Cochrane,
and which to-day is the drawing-room. To
this high place Claverhouse climbed from the
room where he had examined the two Englishmen,
and here he passed the last hours of
daylight on the day before the battle of Killiecrankie.
Seating himself at one of the
windows, he looked out towards the west,
through whose golden gates the sun had begun
to enter. Beneath lay a widespreading
meadow which reached to the Garry; beyond
the river the ground began to rise, and in the
distance were the hills covered with heather,
with lakes of emerald amid the purple. There
are two hours of the day when the soul of
man is powerfully affected by the physical
world in which we live, and in which, indeed,
the things we see become transparent, like a
285
thin veil, and through them the things which
are not seen stream in upon the soul. One
is sunrise, when there is first a grayness in
the east, and then the clouds begin to redden,
and afterwards a joyful brightness heralds
the appearing of the sun as he drives in rout
the reluctant rearguard of the night. The
most impressive moment is when all the high
lands are bathed in soft, fresh, hopeful sunshine,
but the glens are still lying in the cold
and dank shadow, so that one may suddenly
descend from a place of brightness, where he
has been in the eye of the sun, to a land of
gloom, which the sun has not yet reached.
Sunrise quickens the power that has been
sleeping, and calls a man in high hope to the
labor of the day, for if there be darkness
lingering in the glen, there is light on the
lofty table-lands, and soon it will be shining
everywhere, when the sun has reached his
meridian. And it puts heart into a man to
come over the hill and down through the hollows
when the sun is rising, for though the
woods be dark and chill, the traveller is sure
of the inevitable victory of the light.
Yet more imperious and irresistible is the
impression of sunset as Dundee saw the closing
pageant of the day on the last evening of
his life. When first he looked the green plain
286
was flooded with gentle light which turned
into gold the brown, shaggy Highland cattle
scattered among the grass, and made the
river as it flashed out and in among the
trees a chain of silver, and took the hardness
from the jagged rocks that emerged from
the sides of the hills. As the sun entered in
between high banks of cloud, the light began
to fade from the plain, and it touched the
river no more; but above the clouds were
glowing and reddening like a celestial army
clad in scarlet and escorting home to his palace
a victorious general. In a few minutes
the sun has disappeared, and the red changes
into violet and delicate, indescribable shades
of green and blue, like the color of Nile
water. Then there is a faint flicker, sudden
and transient, from the city into which the
sun has gone, and the day is over. As the
monarch of the day withdraws, the queen of
the night takes possession, and Claverhouse,
leaning his chin upon his hand and gazing
from the sadness of his eyes across the valley,
saw the silver light, clear, beautiful,
awful, flood the mountains and the level
ground below, till the outstanding hills above,
and the cattle which had lain down to rest
in the meadow, were thrown out as in an
etching, with exact and distinct outlines.
287
The day, with its morning promise, with its
noontide heat, with its evening glory, was
closed, completed and irrevocable. The
night, in which no man can work, had come,
and in the cold and merciless light thereof
every man’s work was revealed and judged.
The weird influence of the hour was upon
the imagination of an impressionable man,
and before him he saw the history of his life.
It seemed only a year or so since he was a
gay-hearted lad upon the Sidlaw hills, and
yesterday since he made his first adventure
in arms, with the army of France. Again
he is sitting by the camp-fire in the Low
Country, and crossing swords for the first
time with Hugh MacKay, with whom he is
to settle his warfare to-morrow. He is again
pledging his loyalty to King James at Whitehall,
whom he has done his best to serve, and
who has been but a sorry master to him. His
thoughts turn once more to the pleasaunce
of Paisley Castle, he hears again the jingling
of the horses’ bits as he pledges his troth to
his bride. Across the moss-hags, where the
horses plunge in the ooze and the mist encircles
the troopers, he is hunting his Covenanting
prey, and catches the fearless face
of some peasant zealot as he falls pierced
with bullets. Jean weaves her arms round
288
his neck, for once in her life a tender and
fearful woman, pleading that he should withdraw
from the fight and live quietly with her
at home, and then, more like herself, she
rages in the moment of his mad jealousy
and her unquenchable anger. To-morrow
he would submit to the final arbitrament of
arms the cause for which he had lived, and
for which the presentiment was upon him
that he would die, and the quarrel begun
between him and MacKay fifteen years ago,
between the sides they represent centuries
ago, would be settled. If the years had been
given back to him to live again, he would not
have had them otherwise. Destiny had settled
for him his politics and his principles,
for he could not leave the way in which
Montrose had gone before, or be the comrade
of Covenanting Whigs. It would have been
a thing unnatural and impossible. And yet
he feared that the future was with them and
not with the Jacobites. He only did his part
in arresting fanatical hillmen and executing
the punishment of the law upon them, but he
would have been glad that night if he had
not been obliged to shoot John Brown of
Priest Hill before his wife’s eyes, and keep
guard at the scaffold from which Pollock
went home to God. He had never loved any
289
other woman than Jean Cochrane, and they
were well mated in their high temper of nature,
but their marriage had been tempestuous,
and he was haunted with vague misgivings.
What light was given him he had
followed, but there was little to show for his
life. His king had failed him, his comrades
had distrusted him, his nation hated him.
His wife––had she forgiven him, and was she
true-hearted to him still? Behind high words
of loyalty and hope his heart had been sinking,
and now it seemed to him in the light
of eternal judgment, wherein there is justice
but no charity, that his forty years had failed
and were leaving behind them no lasting
good to his house or to his land. The moonlight
shining full upon Claverhouse shows
many a line now on the smoothness of his fair
girl face, and declares his hidden, inextinguishable
sorrow, who all his days had been
an actor in a tragedy. He had written to
the chiefs that all the world was with him,
but in his heart he knew that it was against
him, and perhaps also God.
Once and again Grimond had come into the
gallery to summon his master to rest, but seeing
him absorbed in one of his reveries had
quietly withdrawn. Full of anxiety, for he
knows what the morrow will mean, that faithful
290
servitor at last came near and rustled to
catch his master’s ear.
“Jock,” said Claverhouse, startling and
rising to his feet, “is that you, man, coming
to coax me to my bed as ye did lang syne,
when ye received me first from my nurse’s
hands? It’s getting late, and I am needing
rest for to-morrow’s work, if I can get it.
We have come to Armageddon, as the preachers
would say, and mony things for mony
days hang on the issue. All a man can do,
Jock, is to walk in the road that was set before
him from a laddie, and to complete the task
laid to his hand. What will happen afterwards
doesna concern him, so be it he is faithful.
Where is my room? And, hark ye, Jock,
waken me early, and be not far from me
through the night, for I can trust you altogether.
And there be not mony true.”
Worn out with a long day in the saddle,
and the planning of the evening together
with many anxieties, and the inward tumult
of his mind, Claverhouse fell asleep. He
was resting so quietly that Grimond, who had
gone to the door to listen, was satisfied and
lay down to catch an hour or two of sleep for
himself, for he could waken at any hour he
pleased, and knew that soon after daybreak
he must be stirring. While he was nearby
291
heavy with sleep, his master, conscious or
unconscious, according as one judges, was in
the awful presence of the unseen. He woke
suddenly, as if he had been called, and knew
that someone was in the room, but also in the
same instant that it was not Grimond or any
visitor of flesh and blood. Twice had the
wraith of the Grahams appeared to him, and
always before a day of danger, but this time
it was no sad, beautiful woman’s face, carrying
upon its weird grace the sorrows of his
line, but the figure of a man that loomed from
the shadow. The moon had gone behind a
cloud, and the room was so dark that he
could only see that someone was there, but
could not tell who it was or by what name he
would be called. Then the moon struggled
out from behind her covering, and sent a
shaft of light into the gloomy chamber, with
its dark draping and heavy carved furniture.
With the coming of the light Claverhouse,
who was not unaccustomed to ghostly sights,
for they were his heritage, raised himself in
bed, and knowing no fear looked steadily.
What he saw thrown into relief against the
shadows was the figure of a hillman of the
west, and one that in an instant he knew.
The Covenanter was dressed in rough homespun
hodden gray, stained heavily with the
292
black of the peat holes in which he had been
hiding, and torn here and there where the
rocks had caught him as he was crawling for
shelter. Of middle age, with hair hanging
over his ears and beard uncared for, his face
bore all the signs of hunger and suffering,
as of one who had wanted right food and
warmth and every comfort of life for months
on end. In his eyes glowed the fire of an intense
and honest, but fierce and narrow piety,
and with that expression was mingled another,
not of anger nor of sorrow, but of reproach,
of judgment and of sombre triumph.
His hands were strapped in front of him with
a stirrup leather, and his head was bare. As
the moon shone more clearly, Claverhouse saw
other stains than those of peat upon his chest,
and while he looked the red blood seemed to
rise from wounds that pierced his heart and
lungs, it flowed out again in a trickling stream,
and dripped upon the whiteness of his hands.
More awful still, there was a wound in his
forehead, and part of his head was shattered.
The scene had never been absent long from
Claverhouse’s memory, and now he reacted it
again. How this man had been caught after
a long pursuit, upon the moor, how he had
stood bold and unrepentant before the man
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that had power of life and death over him,
how he refused to take the oath of loyalty to
the king, how he had been shot dead before
his cottage, and how his wife had been spectator
of her husband’s death.
“Ye have not forgot me, John Graham of
Claverhouse, nor the deed which ye did at
Priest Hill in the West Country. I am John
Brown, whom ye caused to be slain for the
faith of the saints and their testimony, and
whom ye set free from the bondage of man
forever. Behold, I have washed my robes
and made them white in better blood than
this, but I am sent in the garment o’ earth,
sair stained wi’ its defilement, and in my ain
unworthy blude, that ye may ken me and believe
that I am sent.”
“What I did was according to law,” answered
Claverhouse, unshaken by the sight,
“and in the fulfilling of my commission,
though God knows I loved not the work, and
have oftentimes regretted thy killing. For
that and all the deeds of this life I shall answer
to my judge and not to man. What wilt
thou have with me, what hast thou to do with
me? Had it been the other way and I had
fallen at Drumclog, I had not troubled thee
or any of thy kind.”
“Nor had I been minded or allowed to
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visit thee, John Graham, if I had fallen in
fair fight, contending for Christ’s crown and
the liberty of the Scots Kirk, but these
wounds upon my head and breast speak not
of war, but of murder. Because thou didst
murder Christ’s confessors, and the souls of
the martyrs cry from beneath the altar, I am
come to show thee things which are to be and
the doing of Him who saith, ‘I will avenge.’
Ye have often said go, and he goeth, and
come and he cometh, but this nicht ye will
come with me, and see things that will shake
even thy bold heart.” And so in vision they
went.
Claverhouse was standing in a country
kirkyard, and at the hour of sunset. Round
him were ancient graves with stones whose
inscriptions had been worn away by rough
weather, and upon which the grass was growing
rank. They were the resting-places of
past generations whose descendants had died
out, and whose names were forgotten in the
land where once they may have been mighty
people. Before him was a burying-place he
knew, for it belonged to his house. There lay
his father, and there he had laid his mother,
the Lady Magdalene Graham, to rest, taken
as he often thought from the evil to come.
The ground had been stirred again, and there
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was another grave. It was of tiny size, not
that of a man or woman, but of a child, and
one that had died in its infancy. It was carefully
tended, as if the mother still lived and
had not yet forgotten her child. At the sight
of it Claverhouse turned to the figure by his
side.
“Ye mean not–––”
“Read,” said the Covenanter, “for the
writing surely is plain.” And this is what
Claverhouse saw:
“JAMES GRAHAME,
Only son and child of my Lord Dundie.
Aged eight months.”
“Ye longed for him and ye were proud
of him, and if the sword of the righteous
should slay thee, ye boasted in your heart
that there was a man-child to continue your
line. But there shall be none, and thine evil
house shall die from out the land, like the
house of Ahab, the son of Omri, who persecuted
the saints. Fathers have seen their
sons’ heads hung above the West Port to
bleach in the sun for the sake of the Covenant,
and mothers have wept for them who
languished in the dungeon of the Bass and
wearied for death. This is the cup ye are
drinking this night before the time, for, behold,
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thou hast harried many homes, but thy
house shall be left unto thee desolate.”
For a brief space Claverhouse bent his
head, for he seemed to feel the child in his
arms, as he had held him before leaving Glenogilvie.
Then he rallied his manhood, who
had never been given to quail before the
hardest strokes of fortune.
“God rest his innocent soul, if this be his
lot; but I live and with me my house.”
“Yea, thou livest,” said the shade, “and
it has been a stumbling-block to many that
thou wert spared so long, but the day of
vengeance is at hand. Come again with me.”
Claverhouse finds himself now on a plain
with the hills above and a river beneath and
an ancient house close at hand, and he knows
that this is the battle-field of to-morrow.
They are standing together on a mound which
rises out of a garden, and on the grass the
body of a man is lying. A cloth covers his
face, but by the uniform and arms Claverhouse
knows that it is that of an officer of
rank, and one that has belonged to his own
regiment of horse. A dint upon the cuirass
and the sight of the sword by his side catch
his eye and he shudders.
“This––do I see myself?”
“Yes, thou seest thyself lying low as the
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humblest man and weaker now than the poorest
of God’s people thou didst mock.”
“It is not other than I expected, nor does
this make me afraid, and I judge thou art a
lying spirit, for I see no wound. Lift up the
cloth. Nor any mark upon my face. I had
not died for nothing.”
“Nay, thou hadst been ready to die in the
heat of battle facing thy foe, for there has
ever been in thee a bold heart, but thy wound
is not in front as mine is. See ye, Claverhouse,
thou hast been killed from behind.”
And Claverhouse saw where the blood, escaping
from a wound near the armpit, had
stained the grass. “Aye, some one of thine
own and riding near beside thee found that
place, and as thou didst raise thine arm to call
thy soldiers to the slaughter of them who are
contending for the right, thou wast cunningly
stricken unto death. By a coward’s blow thou
hast fallen, O valiant man, and there will be
none to mourn thy doom, for thou hast been
a man of blood from thy youth up, even unto
this day.”
“Thou liest there, and art a false spirit.
It may be that your assassins are in my army,
and that I may have the fate of the good
archbishop whom the saints slew in cold blood
and before his daughter’s eyes. But if I fall
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I shall be mourned deep and long by one who
was of your faith, and had her name in your
Covenant, but whose heart I won like goodly
spoil taken from the mighty. If I die by the
sword of my Lady Cochrane’s men, her
daughter will keep my grave green with her
tears. If, living, I have been loved by one
strong woman, and after I am dead am
mourned by her, I have not lived in vain.”
“Sayest thou,” replied the shadowy figure,
with triumphant scorn. “That was a pretty
catch-word to be repeated over the wine cup
at the drinking of my lady’s health. Verily
thou didst deceive a daughter of the godly,
and she was willing to be caught in the snare
of thy fair face and soft words. Judge ye
whether the child who breaks the bond of the
Covenant and turns against the mother who
bore her, is likely to be a true wife or a faithful
widow. Again will I lift the veil, and
thou wilt see with thine own eyes the things
which are going to be, for as thou hast shown
no mercy, mercy will not be shown to thee.
Dost thou remember this place?”
Claverhouse is again within the gallery of
Paisley Castle, and he is looking upon a marriage
service. Before him are the people of
five years ago, except that now young Lord
Cochrane is Earl of Dundonald, and is giving
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away the bride, and my Lady Cochrane is not
there either to bless or to ban. For a while
he cannot see the faces of the bride or bridegroom,
nor tell what they are, save that he
is a soldier, and she is tall and proud of carriage.
“My marriage day!” exclaimed Claverhouse,
his defiant note softening into tenderness,
and the underlying sorrow rising into
joy. “For this vision at least I bless thee,
spirit, whoever thou mayest be, Brown or
any other. That was the day of all my life,
and I am ready now or any time in this world
or the other to have it over again and pledge
my troth to my one and only love, to my gallant
lady and sweetheart, Jean.”
“Thou wilt not be asked to take thy marriage
vow again, Claverhouse, nor would thy
presence be acceptable on this day. It is the
wedding of my Lady Viscountess Dundee,
but be not too sure that thou art the bridegroom.
She that broke lightly the Covenant
with her living heavenly bridegroom, will
have little scruple in breaking the bond to a
dead earthly bridegroom. Thy Jean hath
found another husband.”
From the faces of the bride and bridegroom
the mysterious shadow, which hides
the future from the present in mercy to us
300
all, lifted. It was Jean as majestic and as
youthful as in the days when he wooed her
in the pleasaunce, with her golden hair glittering
as before in the sunshine, and the love-light
again in her eye. And beside her, oh!
fickleness of a woman’s heart, oh! irony of
life, oh! cruelty to the most faithful passion,
Colonel Livingstone, now my Lord Kilsyth.
And an expression of fierce satisfaction lit
up the Covenanter’s ghastly face.
“This then was thy revenge, Jean, for the
insult I offered at Glenogilvie, and I was
right in my fear that thy love was shattered.
Be it so,” said Claverhouse, “I believe that
thou wast loyal while I lived, and now, while
I may have hoped other things of thee, I will
not grudge thee in thy loneliness peace and
protection. When this heart of mine, which
ever beat for thee, lies cold in the grave, and
my hair, that thou didst caress, has mingled
with the dust, may joy be with thee, Jean,
and God’s sunshine ever rest upon thy golden
crown. Thou didst think, servant of the
devil, to damn my soul in the black depths of
jealousy and hatred, as once I damned myself,
but I have escaped, and I defy thee. Do
as thou pleasest, thou canst not break my
spirit or make me bend. Hast thou other visions?”
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“One more,” said the spirit, “and I have
done with thee, proud and unrepentant sinner.”
Before Claverhouse is a room in which
there has been some sudden disaster, for the
roof has fallen and buried in its ruins a bed
whereon someone had been sleeping, and a
cradle in which some child had been lying.
In the foreground is a coffin covered by a
pall.
“She was called before her judge without
warning, prepared or unprepared, and thou
hadst better see her for the last time ere she
goes to the place of the dead.” And then the
cloth being lifted, Claverhouse looked on the
face of his wife, with her infant child, not
his, but Kilsyth’s, lying at her feet. There
was no abatement in the splendor of her hair,
nor the pride of her countenance; the flush
was still upon her cheek, and though her eyes
were closed there was courage in the set of
her lips. By an unexpected blow she had
been stricken and perished, but in the fullness
of her magnificent womanhood, and undismayed.
Lying there she seemed to defy
death, and her mother’s curse, which had
come true at last.
“So thou also art to be cut off in the midst
of thy days, Jean. Better this way both for
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you and me, than to grow old and become
feeble, and be carried to and fro, and be
despised. We were born to rule and not to
serve, to conquer and not to yield, to persecute
if need be, but not to be persecuted. Kilsyth
loved thee, it was not his blame, who
would not? He did his best to please thee.
Mayhap it was not much he could do, but that
was not his blame. He was thy husband for
awhile, but I am thy man forever. Thou art
mine and I am thine, for we are of the same
creed and temper. I, John Graham of Claverhouse,
and not Kilsyth, will claim thee on the
judgment day, and thou shalt come with me,
as the eagle follows her mate; together we
shall go to Heaven or to Hell, for we are one.
Slain we may be, Jean, but conquered never.
We have lived, we have loved, and neither in
life or death can anyone make us afraid.”
Outside the trumpets sounded and Claverhouse
awoke, for the visions of the night had
passed and the light of the morning was
pouring into his room.
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It is written in an ancient book “weeping
may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning,” and with the brief darkness of
the summer night passed the shadow from
Claverhouse’s soul. According, also, to the
brightness and freshness of the early sunshine
was his high hope on the eventful day,
which was to decide both the fate of his king
and of himself. The powers of darkness had
attacked him on every side, appealing to his
fear and to his faith, to his love and to his
hate, to his pride and to his jealousy, to see
whether they could not shake his constancy
and break his spirit. They had failed at
every assault, and he had conquered; he had
risen above his ghostly enemies and above
himself, and now, having stood fast against
principalities and powers of the other world,
he was convinced that his earthly enemies
would be driven before him as chaff before
the wind. He knew exactly what MacKay
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and his army could do, and what he and his
army could, in the place of issue, where, by
the mercy of God, Who surely was on the
side of His anointed, the battle would be
fought. What would avail MacKay’s parade-ground
tactics and all the lessons of books,
and what would avail the drilling and the
manœuvring of his hired automatons in the
pass of Killiecrankie, with its wooded banks
and swift running river, and narrow gorge
and surrounding hills? This was no level
plain for wheeling right and wheeling left,
for bombarding with artillery and flanking
by masses of cavalry. Claverhouse remembers
the morning of the battle of Seneffe, when he
rode with Carleton and longed to be on the
hills with a body of Highlanders, and have
the chance of taking by surprise the lumbering
army of the Prince of Orange and sweeping
it away by one headlong charge. The day
for this onslaught had come, and by an irony,
or felicity, of Providence, he has the troops
he had longed for and his rival has the inert
and helpless regulars. News had come that
MacKay was marching with phlegmatic
steadiness and perfect confidence into the
trap, and going to place himself at the greatest
disadvantage for his kind of army. The
Lord was giving the Whigs into his hand,
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and they would fall before the sun set, as a
prey unto his sword. The passion of battle
was in his blood, and the laurels of victory
were within his reach. Graham forgot his
bitter disappointments and cowardly friends,
the weary journeys and worse anxieties of
the past weeks, the cunning cautiousness of
the chiefs and their maddening jealousies.
Even the pitiable scene at Glenogilvie and his
gnawing vain regret faded for the moment
from his memory and from his heart. If the
Lowlands had been cold as death to the good
cause, the Highlands had at last taken fire;
if he had not one-tenth the army he should
have commanded, had every Highlander
shared his loyalty to the ancient line, he had
sufficient for the day’s work. If he had
spoken in vain to the king at Whitehall and
miserably failed to put some spirit into his
timid mind, and been outvoted at the Convention,
and been driven from Edinburgh by
Covenanting assassins and hunted like a
brigand by MacKay’s troops, his day had
now come. He was to taste for the first time
the glorious cup of victory. He had not been
so glad or confident since his marriage day,
when he snatched his bride from the fastness
of his enemy, and as Grimond helped him to
arm, and gave the last touches to his martial
306
dress, he jested merrily with that solemn servitor,
and sang aloud to Grimond’s vast dismay,
who held the good Scottish faith that if
you be quiet Providence may leave you alone,
but if you show any sign of triumph it will
be an irresistible temptation to the unseen
powers.
“I’m judging my lord, that we’ll win the
day, and that it will be a crownin’ victory.
I would like fine to see MacKay’s army
tumble in are great heap into the Garry, with
their general on the top o’ them. I’m expectin’
to see ye ride into Edinburgh at the
head o’ the clans, and the Duke o’ Gordon
come oot frae the castle to greet you, as the
king’s commander-in-chief, and a’ Scotland
lyin’ at yir mercy. But for ony sake be cautious,
Maister John, and dinna mak a noise,
it’s juist temptin’ Providence, an’ the Lord
forgie me for sayin’ it, I never saw a hicht
withoot a howe. I’m no wantin’ you to be
there afore the day is done. Dinna sing thae
rantin’ camp songs, and abune a’ dinna whistle
till a’ things be settled; at ony rate, it’s no
canny.”
“Was there ever such a solemn face and
cautious-spoken fellow living as you, Jock
Grimond, though I’ve seen you take your
glass, and unless my ears played me false, sing
307
a song, too, round the camp-fire in days past.
But I know the superstition that is in
you and all your breed of Lowland Scots.
Whether ye be Covenanters or Cavaliers,
ye are all tarred with the same stick. Do ye
really think, Jock, that the Almighty sits
watching us, like a poor, jealous, cankered
Whig minister, and if a bit of good fortune
comes our way and our hearts are lifted, that
He’s ready to strike for pure bad temper?
But there’s no use arguing with you, for
you’re set in your own opinions. But I’ll
tell you what to do––sing the dreariest Psalm
ye can find to the longest Cameronian tune.
That will keep things right, and ward off
judgment, for the blood in my veins is dancing,
Jock, and the day of my life has come.”
Claverhouse went out from his room to
confer with the chiefs and his officers about
the plan of operation, “like a bridegroom
coming out of his chamber and rejoicing as
a strong man to run a race.” Grimond, as
he watched him go, shook his head and said
to himself, “The last time I heard a Covenanting
tune was at Drumclog, and it’s no
a cheerfu’ remembrance. May God preserve
him, for in John Graham is all our hope and
a’ my love.”
Through the morning of the decisive day
308
the omens continued favorable, and the sun
still shone on Claverhouse’s heart. As a rule,
a war council of Highland chiefs was a babel
and a battle, when their jealous pride and
traditional rivalry rose to fever height. They
were often more anxious to settle standing
quarrels with one another than to join issue
with the enemy; they would not draw a sword
if their pride had in any way been touched,
and battles were lost because a clan had been
offended. Jacobite councils were also cursed
by the self-seeking and insubordination of
officers, who were not under the iron discipline
of a regular army, and owing to the absence
of the central authorities, with a king
beyond the water, were apt to fight for their
own hand. Dundee had known trouble, and
had in his day required more self-restraint
than nature had given him, and if there had
been division among the chiefs that day, he
would have fallen into despair; but he had
never seen such harmony. They were of one
mind that there could not be a ground more
favorable than Killiecrankie, and that they
should offer battle to MacKay before the day
closed. They approved of the line of march
which Dundee had laid out, and the chiefs,
wonderful to say, raised no objection to the
arrangement of the clans in the fighting line,
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even although the MacDonalds were placed
on the left, which was not a situation that
proud clan greatly fancied. The morning
was still young when the Jacobite army left
their camping ground in the valley north
of Blair Castle, and, climbing the hillside,
passed Lude, till they reached a ridge which
ran down from the high country on their left
to the narrow pass through which the Garry
ran. Along this rising ground, with a plateau
of open ground before them, fringed
with wood, Dundee drew up his army, while
below MacKay arranged his troops, whom he
had hastily extricated from the dangerous
and helpless confinement of the pass. During
the day they faced one another, the Jacobites
on their high ground, William’s
troops on the level ground below––two characteristic
armies of Highlanders and Lowlanders,
met to settle a quarrel older than
James and William, and which would last,
under different conditions and other names,
centuries after the grass had grown on the
battle-field of Killiecrankie and Dundee been
laid to his last rest in the ancient kirkyard of
Blair. Had Dundee considered only his own
impetuous feelings, and given effect to the
fire that was burning him, he would have instantly
launched his force at MacKay. He
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was, however, determined that day, keen
though he was, to run no needless risks nor
to give any advantage to the enemy. The
Highlanders were like hounds held in the
leash, and it was a question of time when they
must be let go. He would keep them if he
could, till the sun had begun to set and its
light was behind them and on the face of
MacKay’s army.
During this period the messenger came
back with an answer to the despatch which
Dundee had sent to MacKay the night before.
He had found William’s general at Pitlochry,
as he was approaching the pass of Killiecrankie,
and, not without difficulty and some
danger, had presented his letter.
“This man, sir, surrendered himself late
last night to my Lord Belhaven, who was
bivouacking in the pass which is ahead,” said
an English aide-de-camp to General MacKay,
“and his lordship, from what I am told, was
doubtful whether he should not have shot
him as a spy, but seeing he had some kind of
letter addressed to you, sir, he sent him on
under guard. It may be that it contains
terms of surrender, and at any rate it will, I
take it, be your desire that the man be kept
a prisoner.”
“You may take my word for it, Major
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Lovel,” said young Cameron of Lochiel, who,
according to the curious confusion of that
day, was with MacKay, while his father was
with Dundee, “and my oath also, if that adds
anything to my word, that whatever be in the
letter, there will be no word of surrender.
Lord Dundee will fight as sure as we are living
men, and I only pray we may not be the
losers. Ye be not wise to laugh,” added he
hotly, “and ye would not if ye had ever seen
the Cameron’s charge.”
“Peace, gentlemen, we are not here to
quarrel with one another,” said General MacKay.
“Hand me the letter, and do the messenger
no ill till we see its contents.”
As he read his cheek flushed for a moment,
and he made an impatient gesture with his
hand, as one repudiating the shameful accusation,
and then he spoke with his usual composure.
“You are right,” he said, addressing
Cameron, who was on his staff, “in thinking
that Lord Dundee is ready for the fight.
I had expected nothing else from him, for I
knew him of old, the bigotry of his principles,
and the courage of his heart. We could never
be else than foes, but I wish to say, whatever
happens before the day is done, that I count
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him a brave and honorable gentleman, as it
pleases me to know he counts me also.
“This letter”––and MacKay threw it with
irritation on the table of the room in which he
had taken his morning meal, “is from Dundee
explaining that two English officers have
been arrested, who were serving as privates
in his cavalry, and who are suspected of being
sent by us to assassinate him. If no answer
is sent back they will be hung at once, but if
the charge is denied, they will be released,
which, I take it, gentlemen, is merciful and
generous conduct.
“I will write a letter with my own hand
and clear our honor from this foul slander.
Spying is allowed in war, though I have
never liked it, and the spy need deserve no
mercy, but assassination is unworthy of any
soldier, and a work of the devil, of which I
humbly trust I am incapable, and also my
king. Give this letter”––when he had written
and sealed it––“to the messenger, Major
Lovel, and see that he has a safe conduct
through our army, and past our outposts.”
Lovel saluted and left the room, but outside
he laughed, and said to himself, “Very likely
it’s true all the same, and a quick and useful
way of ending the war. When Claverhouse
dies the rebellion dies, too, and there’s a text
313
somewhere which runs like this, ‘It is expedient
that one man should die than all the
people.’ I wonder who those fellows are, and
if they’ll manage it, and what they’re going
to get. They have the devil’s luck in this affair,
for, of course, MacKay would be told
nothing about it; he’s the piousest officer in
the English army.”
Dundee received MacKay’s letter during
the long wait before the battle, and this is
what he read:
To My Lord Viscount Dundee, Commanding the forces
raised in the interest of James Stuart.
My Lord: It gives me satisfaction that altho’ words once
passed between us, and there be a far greater difference
to-day, you have not believed that I was art and part in
so base a work as assassination, and I hereby on my word
of honor as an officer, and as a Christian, declare that I
know nothing of the two men who are under arrest in your
camp. So far as I am concerned their blood should not
be shed, nor any evil befall them.
Before this letter reaches your hand we shall be arrayed
against one another in order of battle, and though arms
be my profession, I am filled with sorrow as I think that
the conflict to-day will be between men of the same nation,
and sometimes of the same family, for it seemeth to me
as if brother will be slaying brother.
I fear that it is too late to avert battle and I have no
authority to offer any terms of settlement to you and those
that are with you. Unto God belongs the issue, and in His
hands I leave it. We are divided by faith, and now also
314
by loyalty, but if any evil befel your person I pray you
to believe that it would give me no satisfaction, and I
beg that ye be not angry with me nor regard me with contempt
if I send you as I now do the prayer which, as a
believer in our common Lord I have drawn up for the
use of our army. It may be the last communication that
shall pass between us.
I have the honor to be,
Your very obedient servant,
Hugh MacKay.
Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Forces.
And this was the prayer, surely the most
remarkable ever published by a general of
the British army:
O Almighty King of Kings, and Lord of Hosts, which
by Thy Angels thereunto appointed, dost minister both
War and Peace; Thou rulest and commandest all things,
and sittest in the throne judging right; And, therefore,
we make our Addresses to Thy Divine Majesty in this our
necessity, that Thou wouldst take us and our Cause into
Thine Own hand and judge between us and our Enemies.
Stir up Thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us, for
Thou givest not always the Battle to the strong, but canst
save by Many or Few. O let not our sins now cry against
us for vengeance, but hear us Thy poor servants, begging
mercy, and imploring Thy help, and that Thou wouldst
be a defence for us against the Enemy. Make it appear,
that Thou art our Saviour, and Mighty Deliverer, through
Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Dundee ordered the English officers to be
brought before him, and for thirty seconds
315
he looked at them without speaking, as if he
were searching their thoughts and estimating
their character. During this scrutiny the
shorter man looked sullen and defiant, as one
prepared for the worst, but the other was as
careless and gay as ever, with the expression
either of one who was sure of a favorable
issue, or of one who took life or death as a
part of the game.
“If I tell you, gentlemen, that your general
refuses to clear you from this charge,
have ye anything to say before ye die?”
“Nothing,” said their spokesman, with a
light laugh, “except that we would take more
kindly to a bullet than a rope. ’Tis a soldier’s
fancy, my lord, but I fear me ye will not humor
it; perhaps ye will even say we have not
deserved it.”
When Dundee turned to the other, who had
not yet spoken, this was all he got:
“My lord, that it be quickly, and that no
mention be made of our names. It was an
adventure, and it has ended badly.”
“Gentlemen, whoever ye may be, and that
I do not know, and whatever ye may be about,
and of that also I am not sure, I have watched
you closely, and I freely grant that ye are
both brave men. Each in his own way, and
each to be trusted by his own cause, though
316
there be one of you I would trust rather than
the other.
“I have this further to say, that General
MacKay declares that, so far as he knows,
ye are innocent of the foul crime of which
we suspected you. I might still keep you in
arrest, and it were perhaps wiser to do so;
but I have myself suffered greatly through
mistrusting those who were true and honorable,
and I would not wish to let the shadow
of disgrace lie upon you, if indeed ye be honest
Cavaliers. You have your liberty, gentlemen,
to return to your troop, and if there
be any gratitude in you for this deliverance
from death, ride in the front and strike hard
to-day for our king and the ancient Scottish
glory.”
“Thank you, my lord, but I expected
nothing else. I give you our word that we
shall not fail in our duty,” said the taller soldier,
with a light-hearted laugh. But the
other grew dark red in the face, as if a strong
passion were stirring within him. “My
lord,” he said, “I would rather remain as I
am till the battle be over, and then that ye
give me leave to depart from the army.”
Dundee glanced keenly at him, as one
weighing his words, and trying to fathom
317
their meaning, but the taller man broke in
with boisterous haste:
“Pardon my comrade, general, we Englishmen
have proud stomachs, and ye have
offended his honor by your charges, but to-day’s
fighting will be the best medicine.”
And then he hurried his friend away, and as
they left to join their troop he seemed to
be remonstrating with him for his touchy
scruples.
“What ye may think of those two gentlemen
I know not, my lord,” said Lochiel, who
had been standing by, “but I count the dark
man the truer of the two. I like not the
other, though I grant they both be brave. He
is fair and false, if I am not out in my judgment,
with a smooth word and a tricky dirk,
like the Campbells. God grant ye be not
over-generous, and trustful unto blindness.”
“Lochiel, I have trusted, as ye know, many
men who have betrayed our cause; I have distrusted
one who was faithful at a cost to me.
On this day, maybe the last of my life, I will
believe rather than doubt, in the hope that
faith will be the surest bond of honor. There
is something, I know not what, in that tall
fellow I did not like. But what I have done,
I have done, and if I have erred, Lochiel, the
punishment will be on my own head.”
318
“On many other heads, too, I judge,”
muttered Lochiel to himself, and for an instant
he thought of taking private measures
to hinder the two Englishmen from service
that day, but considering that he would have
enough to do with his own work, he went to
prepare his clan for the hour that was near
at hand.
Dundee dismissed his staff for the time on
various duties, and attended only by Grimond,
sat down upon a knoll, from which he
could see the whole plateau of Urrard––the
drawn-out line of his own army beneath him,
and the corresponding formation of the English
troops in the distance. He read MacKay’s
prayer slowly and reverently, and
then, letting the paper fall upon the grass,
Dundee fell into a reverie. There was a day
when he would have treated the prayer
lightly, not because he had ever been a profane
man, like Esau, but because he had no
relish for soldiers who acted as chaplains.
To-day, with the lists of battle before his
eyes, and the ordeal of last night still fresh
in his experience, and his inexcusable cruelty
to Jean, his heart was weighed with a sense
of the tragedy of life and the tears of things.
He was going to fight unto death for his king,
but he was haunted by the conviction that
319
William was a wiser and better monarch.
MacKay and he were to cross swords, as before
they had crossed words, and would ever
cross principles, but he could not help confessing
to himself that MacKay, in the service
of the Prince of Orange, had for years
been doing a more soldierly part than his,
in hunting to the death Covenanting peasants.
His Highlanders below, hungering for
the joy of battle and the gathering of spoil,
were brave and faithful, but they were little
more than savages, and woe betide the land
that lay beneath their sword; while the troops
on the other side represented the forces of
order and civilization, and though they might
be routed that evening, they held the promise
of final victory. Was it worth the doing, and
something of which afterwards a man could
be proud, to restore King James to Whitehall,
and place Scotland again in the hands
of the gang of cowards and evil livers, thieves
and liars who had misgoverned it and shamefully
treated himself? What a confused and
tangled web life was, and who had eyes to decipher
its pattern? He would live and die
for the Stuarts, as Montrose had done before
him; he could not take service under William,
nor be partner with the Covenanters. He
could do none otherwise, and yet, what a Scotland
320
it would be under James, and what a
miserable business for him to return to the
hunt of the Covenanters!
The buoyancy of the morning had passed,
and now his thoughts took a darker turn.
MacKay, no doubt, had told the truth, for he
was not capable of falsehood, but if those
Englishmen were not agents of the English
government, did it follow that they were
clear of suspicion? There was some mystery
about them, for if indeed they had been Cavalier
gentlemen who had abandoned the English
service, would they be so anxious to conceal
themselves? Why should they refuse to
let their names be known? They had come
from Livingstone’s regiment. Was it possible
that they had been sent by him, and if
so, for what end? It is the penalty of once
yielding to distrust that a person falls into
the habit of suspicion, and the latent jealousy
of Livingstone began to work like
poison in Dundee’s blood. Jean was innocent,
he would stake his life on that, but
Livingstone––who knew whether the attraction
of those interviews was Dundee’s cause
or Dundee’s wife? If Livingstone had been
in earnest, he had been with King James’s
men that day; but he might be earnest enough
in love, though halting enough in loyalty. If
321
her husband fell, he would have the freer
course in wooing the wife. What if he had
arranged the assassination, and not William’s
government; what if Jean, outraged
by that reflection upon her honor and infuriated
by wounded pride, had consented to this
revenge? Her house had never been scrupulous,
and love changed to hate by an insult
such as he had offered might be satisfied with
nothing less than blood. Stung by this venomous
thought, Dundee sprang to his feet,
and looking at the westering sun, cried to
Grimond, who had been watching him with
unobtrusive sympathy, as if he read his
thoughts, “Jock, the time for thinking is
over, the time for doing has come.”
He rode along the line and gave his last
directions to the army. Riding from right to
left, he placed himself at the head of the cavalry,
and gave the order to charge. That
wild rush of Highlanders, which swept before
it, across the plain of Urrard, the thin
and panic-stricken line of regular troops,
was not a battle. It was an onslaught, a
flight, a massacre, as when the rain breaks
upon a Highland mountain, and the river in
the glen beneath, swollen with the mountain
water, dashes to the lowlands with irresistible
devastation. Grimond placed himself close
322
behind his master for the charge, and determined
that if there was treachery in the
ranks, the bullet that was meant for Dundee
must pass through him. But the battle advance
of cavalry is confused and tumultuous,
as horses and men roll in the dust, and
eager riders push ahead of their fellows, and
no man knows what he is doing, except that
the foe is in front of him. They were passing
at a gallop across the ground above Urrard
House, when Grimond, who was now a
little in the rear of his commander, saw him
lift his right arm in the air and wave his
sword, and heard him cry, “King James and
the crown of Scotland!” At that instant he
fell forward upon his horse’s mane, as one
who had received a mortal wound, and the
horse galloped off towards the right, with its
master helpless upon it. Through the dust
of battle, and looking between two troopers
who intervened, Grimond saw the fair-haired
Englishman lowering the pistol and thrusting
it into his holster, with which he had shot
Dundee through the armpit, as he gave his
last command. Onward they were carried,
till one of the troopers on his right fell and
the other went ahead, and there was clear
course between Grimond and the Englishman.
They were now, both of them, detached
323
from the main body, and the Englishman was
planning to fall aside and escape unnoticed
from the field. His comrade could not be
seen, and evidently had taken no part in the
deed. Grimond was upon him ere he knew,
and before he could turn and parry the
stroke, Jock’s sword was in him, and he fell
mortally wounded from his horse. Keen as
Grimond was to follow his master, and find
him where he must be lying ahead, he was
still more anxious to get the truth at last out
of the dying man. He knelt down and lifted
up his head.
“It is over with ye now, and thou hast
done thy hellish deed. I wish to God I’d
killed thee before; but say before thou goest
who was thy master––was it Livingstone?
Quick, man, tell the truth, it may serve thee
in the other world, and make hell cooler.”
“Livingstone,” replied the Englishman
with his dying breath, and a look of almost
boyish triumph on his face, “what had I to
do with him? It was from my Lord Nottingham,
his Majesty’s secretary of state, I took
my orders, and I have fulfilled them. Did I
not lie bravely and do what I had to do thoroughly?
Thou cunning rascal, save for thee
I had also escaped. You may take my purse,
for thou art a faithful servant. My hand
324
struck the final blow.” Now, his breath was
going fast from him, and with a last effort,
as Grimond dropped his head with a curse,
he cried, “You have––won––the battle. Your
cause is––lost.”
Amid the confusion the cavalry had not
noticed the fall of their commander, and
Grimond found his master lying near a
mound, a little above the house of Urrard.
He was faint through loss of blood, and evidently
was wounded unto death, but he recognized
his faithful follower, and thanked him
with his eyes, as Jock wiped the blood from
his lips––for he was wounded through the
lungs––and gave him brandy to restore his
strength.
“Ye cannot staunch that wound, Jock, and
this is my last fight. How goes it––is it well?”
“Well for the king, my lord––the battle is
won; but ill for thee, my dear maister.”
“If it be well for the king, it’s well for me,
Jock, but I wish to God my wound had been
in front. That fair-haired fellow, I take it,
did the deed. Ye killed him, did ye, Jock?
Well, he deserved it, but I fain would know
who was behind him before I die. If it were
he whom I suspect, Jock, I could not rest in
my grave.”
“Rest easy, Maister John, I wrung the
325
truth frae his deein’ lips. It was Lord Nottingham,
the English minister, wha feed him,
the black-hearted devil. Livingstone had naethin’
to do wi’ the maitter, far less onybody––ye
luved.”
“Thank God, and you too, Jock, my faithful
friend.... Tell Lady Dundee that
my last thoughts were with her, and my last
breath repeated her name.... For the
rest, I have done what I could, according to
my conscience.... May the Lord have
mercy on my sins.... God save the
King!”
So, after much strife and many sorrows,
Claverhouse fell in the moment of victory,
and passed to his account.
THE END
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Transcriber’s Note:
Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs.
Author’s archaic and variable spelling and hyphenation is preserved.
Author’s punctuation style is preserved.
Any missing page numbers in this HTML version refer to blank or un-numbered pages in the original.
Typographical problems have been changed and these are
highlighted.
Transcriber’s Changes:
Frontispiece caption: Was ‘Page 265’ (Lady Dundee lifted up the child for him to kiss. Pages 261-2.)
Page 226: Was ‘Mackay’ (more than when hounds run a fox to his lair. MacKay would be arranging how to trap him, anticipating his ways of escape, and stopping)
Page 299: Was ‘brown’ (joy. “For this vision at least I bless thee, spirit, whoever thou mayest be, Brown or any other. That was the day of all my life,)
Page 318: Was ‘perpare’ (enough to do with his own work, he went to prepare his clan for the hour that was near at hand.)
