A SECRET CHAMBER.
"The cabinet now, dad, and at once," when they went up the stairs and
were standing in the room. "Just give me three guesses about the
mystery; but first let me examine."
It was pretty to see Kate opening the doors, curiously carved with
hunting scenes, and searching the interior, tapping with her knuckles
and listening for a hollow sound.
"Is it a treasure we are to find? Then that's one point. Not in the
cabinet? I have it; there is a door into some other place; am n't I
right?"
"Where could it be? We're in a tower cut off from the body of the
Lodge, with a room above and a room below;" and the General sat down to
allow full investigation.
After many journeys up and down the stair, and many questions that
brought no light, Kate played a woman's trick up in her room.
"The General wishes to show me the concealed room in this tower, Janet,
or whatever you call it. Would you kindly tell us how to get entrance?
You need n't come down; just explain to me;" and Kate was very pleasant
indeed.
"Yes, I am hearing there iss a room in the tower, Miss Kate, that
strangers will not be able to find; and it would be very curious if the
Carnegies did not have a safe place for an honest gentleman when he
wass in a little trouble. All the good houses will have their secret
places, and it will not be easy to find some of them. Oh no; now I
will remember one at Glamis Castle. . . ."
"Never mind Glamis, nurse, for the General is waiting. Where is the
spring? is it in the oak cabinet?"
"It will be good for the General to be resting himself after his
luncheon, and he will be thinking many things in his room. Oh yes,"
continued Janet, settling herself down to narrative, and giving no heed
to Kate's beguiling ways, "old Mary that died near a hundred would be
often telling me stories of the old days when I wass a little girl, and
the one I liked best wass about the hiding of the Duke of Perth."
"You will tell me that to-morrow, when I come down to see your house,
Janet, and to-day you 'll tell me how to open the spring."
"But it would be a pity not to finish the story about the Duke of
Perth, for it goes well, and it will be good for a Carnegie to hear
it." And Kate flung herself into the window-seat, but was hugely
interested all the same.
"Mary wass sitting at her door in the evening, and that would be three
days after Culloden, for the news had been sent by a sure hand from the
Laird, when a man came riding along the road, and as soon as Mary saw
him she knew he wass somebody; but perhaps it will be too long a
story," and Janet began to arrange dresses in a wardrobe.
"No, no; as you have begun it, I want to hear the end, but quick, for
there 's the room to see and the rest of the Lodge before it grows
dark. What like was he?"
"He wass a man that looked as if he would be commanding, but his
clothes were common grey, and stained with the road. He wass very
tired, and could hardly hold himself up in the saddle, and his horse
wass covered with foam. 'Is this Tochty Lodge?' he asked, softening
his voice as one trying to speak humbly. 'I am passing this way, and
have a message for Mistress Carnegie; think you that I can have speech
of her quietly?'
"So Mary will go up and tell the lady that one wass waiting to see her,
and that he seemed a noble gentleman. When they came down to the
courtyard he had drawn water for his horse from the well, and wass
giving him to drink, thinking more of the beast that had borne him than
of his own need, as became a man of birth.
"At the sight of the lady he took off his bonnet and bowed low, and
asked if he might hef a private audience, to which Mistress Carnegie
replied, 'We are private here,' and asked, 'Have you been with my son?'
"'We fought together for the Prince three days since--my name is Perth.
I am escaping for my life, and desire a brief rest, if it please you,
and bring no danger to your house.'
"'Ye had been welcome, my Lord Duke,' and Mary used to show how her
mistress straightened herself, though you were the poorest soldier that
had drawn his sword for the good cause, and ye will stay here till it
be safe for you to escape to France.'
"He wass four weeks hidden in the room, and although the soldiers
searched all the house, they could never find the place, and Mrs.
Carnegie put scorn upon them, asking why they did her so much honour
and whom they sought. Oh yes, it wass a cunning place for the bad
times, and you will be pleased to see it."
"And the secret, Janet," cried Kate, her hand upon the door; "you know
it quite well."
"So does the General, Catherine of my heart," said Janet, "and he will
be liking to show it himself."
So Kate departed in a rage, and gave orders that there be no more
delay, for she would not spend an afternoon seeking for rat-holes.
"No rat-hole, Kit, but a very fair chamber for a hunted man; it is
twenty years and more since this door opened last, for none knows the
trick of it save Janet and myself. There it goes."
A panel in the back of the cabinet slid aside behind its neighbour and
left a passage through which one could squeeze himself with an effort.
"We go up a stair now, and must have light; a candle will do; the air
is perfectly pure, for there 's plenty of ventilation;" and then they
crept up by steps in the thickness of the walls, till they stood in a
chamber under six feet high, but otherwise as large as the bedroom
below. The walls were lined with wood, and there were two tiny slits
that gave air, but hardly any light. The only furniture in the room
was an oaken chest, clasped with iron and curiously locked.
"Our plate chest, Kit; but there 'a not much silver and gold in it,
worse luck for you, lassie; in fact, we're a pack of fools to set store
by it. There 's nothing in the kist but some old clothes, and perhaps
some buckles and such like. I dare say there is a lock of hair also.
Some day we will have a look inside."
"To-day, instantly," and Kate shook her father. "You are a dreadful
hypocrite, for I can see that you would rather Tochty were burned down
than this box be lost. Are there any relics of Prince Charlie in it?
Quick."
"Be patient; it's a difficult key to turn; there now;" but there was
not much to see--only pieces of woollen cloth tightly folded down.
[Illustration: "It's a difficult key to turn."]
"Call Janet, Kate, for she ought to see this opening, and we 'll carry
everything down to my room, for no one could tell what like things are
in this gloom. Yes, Perth lived here for weeks, and used to go up to
the gallery where Black John's mother sat with her maid; but the son
was hiding in the North, and never reached his house till he came to
die."
First of all they came upon a ball dress of the former time, of white
silk, with a sash of Macpherson tartan, besides much fine lace.
"That is the dress your great-grandmother wore as a bride at the Court
of Versailles in the fifties. She was only a lassie, and seemed like
her husband's daughter. The Prince danced with her, and they counted
the dress something to be kept, and that night Locheil and Cluny also
had a reel with Sheena Carnegie, while Black John looked like a young
man, for he had been too sorely wounded to be able to dance with her
himself." And then the General carried down with his own hands a
Highland gentleman's evening dress, trews of the Royal tartan, and a
velvet coat with silver buttons, and a light plaid of fine cloth.
"And this was her husband's dress that night; but why the Stewart
tartan?"
"No, lassie, that is the suit the Prince wore at Holyrood, where he
gave a great ball after Prestonpans, and danced with the Edinburgh
ladies. It was smuggled across to France at last with other things of
the Prince's, and he gave it to Carnegie. 'It will remind you of our
great days,' he said, 'when the Stewarts saw their friends in Mary's
Palace.'"
Last of all, the General lifted out a casket and laid it on his table.
Within it was a brooch, such as might once have been worn either by a
man or a woman; diamonds set in gold, and in the midst a lock of fair
hair.
"Is it really, father? . . ." And Kate took the jewel in her hand.
"Yes, the Prince's hair--his wedding present to Sheena Macpherson."
Kate kissed it fervently, and passed it to Janet, who placed it
carefully in the box, while the General made believe to laugh.
"Your mother wore the brooch on great occasions, and you will do the
same, Kit, for auld lang syne. There are two or three families left in
Perthshire that will like to see it on your breast."
"Yes, and there will maybe be more than two or three that will like to
see the lady that wears it." This from Janet.
"Your compliments are a little late, and you may keep them to yourself,
Janet; it would have been kinder to tell me. . . ."
"Tell you what?" And the General looked very provoking.
"I hate to be beaten." Kate first looked angry, and then laughed.
"What else is there to see?"
"There is the gallery, which is the one feature in our poor house, and
we will try to reach it from the Duke's hiding-place, for it was a
cleverly designed hole, and had its stair up as well as down." And
then they all came out into one of the strangest rooms you could find
in Scotland, and one that left a pleasant picture in their minds who
had seen it lit of a winter night, and the wood burning on the hearth,
and Kate dancing a reel with Lord Hay or some other brisk young man,
while the General looked on from one of the deep window recesses.
The gallery extended over the hall and Kate's drawing-room, and
measured fifty feet long from end to end. The upper part of the walls
was divided into compartments by an arcading, made of painted pilasters
and flat arches. Each compartment had a motto, and this was on one
side of the fireplace:
A nice wyfe and
A back doore
Oft maketh a rich
Man poore.
And on the other:--
Give liberalye
To neidfvl folke
Denye nane of
Them al for litle
Thow knawest heir
In this lyfe of what
Chaunce may the
Befall.
The glory of the gallery, however, was its ceiling, which was of the
seventeenth century work, and so wonderful that many learned persons
used to come and study it. After the great disaster when the Lodge was
sold and allowed to fall to pieces, this fine work went first, and now
no one examining its remains could have imagined how wonderful it was,
and in its own way how beautiful. This ceiling was of wood, painted,
and semi-elliptical in form, and one wet day, when we knew not what
else to do, Kate and I counted more than three hundred panels. It was
an arduous labour for the neck, and the General refused to help us; but
I am sure that we did not make too many, for we worked time about,
while the General took note of the figures, and our plan was that each
finished his tale of work at some amazing beast, so that we could make
no mistake. Some of the panels were circles, and they were filled in
with coats-of-arms; some were squares and they contained a bestiary of
that day. It was hard indeed to decide whether the circles or the
squares were more interesting. The former had the arms of every family
in Scotland that had the remotest connection with the Carnegies, and
besides swept in a wider field, comprising David, King of Israel, who
was placed near Hector of Troy, and Arthur of Brittany not far from
Moses--all of whom had appropriate crests and mottoes. In the centre
were the arms of our Lord Christ as Emperor of Judea, and the chief
part of them was the Cross. But it came upon one with a curious shock,
to see this coat among the shields of Scottish nobles. There were
beasts that could be recognised at once, and these were sparingly
named; but others were astounding, and above them were inscribed titles
such as these: Shoe-lyon, Musket, Ostray; and one fearsome animal in
the centre was designated the Ram of Arabia. This display of heraldry
and natural history was reinforced by the cardinal virtues in
seventeenth century dress: Charitas as an elderly female of extremely
forbidding aspect, receiving two very imperfectly clad children; and
Temperantia as a furious-looking person--male on the whole rather than
female--pouring some liquor--surely water--from a jug into a cup, with
averted face, and leaving little to be desired. The afternoon sun
shining in through a western window and lingering among the black and
white tracery, so that the marking of a shield came into relief or a
beast suddenly glared down on one, had a weird, old-world effect.
"It's half an armoury and half a menagerie," said Kate, "and I think we
'll have tea in the library with the windows open to the Glen." And so
they sat together in quietness, with books of heraldry and sport and
ancient Scottish classics and such like round them, while Janet went
out and in.
"So Donald has been obliged to leave his kirk;" for Kate had not yet
forgiven Janet. "He says it's very bad here; I hope you won't go to
such a place."
"What would Donald Macdonald be saying against it?" inquired Janet,
severely.
"Oh, I don't remember--lots of things. He thought you were making too
much of the minister."
"The minister iss a good man, and hass some Highland blood in him,
though he hass lost his Gaelic, and he will be very pleasant in the
house. If I wass seeing a sheep, and it will be putting on this side
and that, and quarrelling with everybody, do you know what I will be
thinking?"
"That's Donald, I suppose; well?"
"I will say to myself, that sheep iss a goat." And Janet left the room
with the laurels of victory.