"IN THE KING'S NAME."
He need not have had any misgivings. The rugged face of the Master of
Windlestrae underwent rapid changes as he listened to his young son's
breathless story. Then he came striding across to the fugitive
nobleman with outstretched palm. Andrew looked delighted enough at
this quick show of cordiality to a man by whom he already was not a
little fascinated.
As the elder Boyd halted in front of Lord Geoffry the latter instantly
decided that he had seldom seen a more naturally commanding figure and
a face fuller of resolution than this transplanted Englishman's--his
tall, sturdy form, iron-grizzled hair, and keen gray eyes.
"Welcome, welcome, my lord!" he exclaimed; "welcome to the board and
hearth of Windlestrae! My son has bidden you be so, and I echo his
greeting. Surely all Scotland is at the service of those who have
drawn blade for--its rightful sovereign."
The two men shook hands, and Boyd's mighty grip thrilled Lord
Armitage's heart. He tried to falter out something about being "an
ill-omened bird to flutter to so peaceful a roost."
"Peaceful? Tut, tut, my lord, no roost is peaceful when there be so
many hawks in the air. Andrew, lad, run--hasten to the Manor before
us. Bid Girzie and Mistress Annan prepare supper and all things
suitable for our guest. I must trouble Lord Geoffry with questionings
and doubtless make him many answers, while we shall come after you."
Andrew sped away toward the house, which ended the lane. The two older
men came on more slowly.
"First, my lord," began Gilbert Boyd, "as my son has surely told you,
you have come to the house in this neighborhood where you will be
safest from pursuit. My good friends hereabouts have never forgot that
my father was Southern-born and that I speak Scotch only when I must.
Hence it follows that I am worthy to be hanged as a traitor. For
once, though, I am glad that I stand in such sorely false light. The
soldiers have troubled themselves little about Windlestrae, and have
ransacked many of the loud-mouthed patriots instead."
"And you have had no raidings from Colonel Danforth's troop?" asked
Lord Geoffry.
Boyd laughed disdainfully. "His soldiery have occasionally moved
toward the Manor, my lord, but even that seldom. I confess, I have
been surprised at my good fortune. One afternoon Danforth and his
company galloped past the crossroads, a couple of miles down yonder,
and asked one of my neighbors, 'Who lives up yonder?' 'Boyd of
Windlestrae,' says the lad. 'Well, then, we'll go no further up that
way to-day!' cries Danforth; 'that man Boyd is as sound a Whig as
ourselves and his wine is most properly bad.' So away they rode, good
riddance to them."
"Safe for long or not, I can at least be sure of a supper and a
bedchamber less airy than a tree," Lord Armitage responded cheerily;
"and both I will enjoy, although Danforth suddenly alter his mind and
come to open every closet in your Manor House."
"Hm!" grunted Boyd, with a peculiar expression. "He will hardly do
_that_."
They passed thatched barns and low stables. It was now growing murky
and dark. The Manor House was next reached, a rambling but dignified
structure, built of gray stone and apparently remarkably roomy and
comfortable. Gilbert pushed open the thick oaken door and motioned his
guest to enter. One or two servants were hurrying along the wainscoted
hall, running in and out of a dining-parlor. Andrew appeared from
this, and with him an elderly woman, Mistress Janet Annan, the
housekeeper, who courtesied to the master and the unexpected guest.
Andrew's mother had died in giving birth to her only child.
The hall and aforesaid dining-parlor were brightly lighted. The
excellent supper--to which Lord Armitage did ravenous justice,
seconded by Andrew--was hurried through in silence; Boyd absorbed in
ministering to the wants of his guest. In the Manor it was already
rumored that the master had suddenly met an old friend; and this
explanation satisfied the present curiosity of the servants' hall.
"To-morrow morning they shall be told the truth," Boyd said reflectively.
"They must not be permitted to gossip. They are all loyal-hearted men
and women. And now, my lord," he continued, as Lord Geoffry pushed
back his chair from the table and exclaimed, "I am quite another
man already!" in his refreshment--"now you must to your rest without
a moment's loss. To-morrow we can discuss together the means of
forwarding you to the sea-coast. Candles, son Andrew! To the Purple
Chamber."
Andrew led the way up a staircase of very respectable breadth and
ease. The room designated as "the Purple Chamber"--from sundry faded
hangings--proved a fair-sized apartment with three casements and a
low-studded ceiling. A formidable four-posted bed and accompanying
furniture graced it, and a trifle of fire flickered on the hearth.
Gilbert locked the door, as Andrew set down the candlesticks on a tall
chest of drawers. "Nay, wait my lad," he said, as he turned toward the
door, "I have something to impart to both our guests and you."
In some surprise, Andrew returned and leaned against one of the heavy
chairs in silence.
"My lord," began Boyd, turning to Armitage, "you spoke a while ago of
Danforth searching the very closets--was it?--of Windlestrae Manor, if
once his suspicions that it sheltered such refugees as yourself should
be stirred. I care not if he do--provided no earthquake and no traitor
disclose to him one of them, built in this old rookery long before my
father bought it and added to it. Until this day have I preserved one
secret of it from you, son, with the rest. There opens from the wall
yonder as snug a hiding-hole as any in Scotland."
"A secret chamber!" ejaculated both Boyd's auditors, following the
pointing of his hand.
"Ay," replied he, approaching Andrew, with a smile upon his grim
features. "The Mouse's Nest--so my father heard it called. I doubt not
that it hid many a Jacobite in the first uprising. Andrew, is yonder
door locked? Good. Now mark!"
Boyd pushed back the hangings and pressed his hand steadily on the
joining of the wainscot at some spot which he identified after an
instant's quick scrutiny. To Andrew's intense astonishment, part of
the jamb of the chimney-piece slid back into the thickness of the
wall. A narrow door-way was revealed leading into darkness.
Andrew was more surprised at the existence of this unsuspected
mystery than Lord Armitage. The latter had been shown many similar
hiding-places in old French and English mansions, he declared.
"Let us within," Gilbert Boyd said; and they passed into a long and
narrow sort of closet, not more than five feet wide, but of six
or seven times that length. Gray stone, above, below--everywhere;
rough-hewn and clammy; no plastering. The place would have been
scarcely at all lighted, and that only at its upper end, without the
candles carried by Boyd. An opening a few inches square, that Andrew
discovered, some ten feet above their heads, seemed constructed only
to admit air, although a faint light also found entrance thereby.
On the floor lay two or three stag-skins, and a couple of small
stools, a taper, and flint and steel; and a pallet in the farther
corner completed the furnishings.
Lord Armitage and Andrew surveyed the place curiously, and Gilbert
explained the means of opening it and securing the panel from within.
"It has not been used in my recollection, my lord," he said, laughing,
as the jamb reclosed. "I trust it may not be; yet if Danforth come too
close, your retreat is secure; and I warrant you one he will not
fathom! Knowing that I have such a guest-room for such a guest is a
rare satisfaction to me to-night."
Father and son then bade the young refugee good-night and left him to
get to bed; he declining all valeting from Andrew. Lord Geoffry was
indeed so exhausted, and the homespun sheets of Mistress Annan's
purveyance seemed so cool, that he fell back into them, asleep, almost
as he touched them.
That sound repose lasted far into the afternoon of the next day.
The Manor House was kept quiet by the master's order, lest word or
foot-fall should waken the young knight out of season. He left his
chamber, on Andrew's arm, as the tall clock on the landing of the
staircase struck four.
"Ha! you look like a new man!" exclaimed Gilbert; "your color has come
back; your eye sparkles like a live coal!"
Seated at the table in the dining-room, the master showed that, while
his guest had slept, he had not been careless for his welfare. In the
first place, the trustworthy servants of the Manor had been solemnly
informed of the situation at morning prayers, and each one pledged to
secrecy and assistance.
"And when do you think that I can proceed eastward to the sea-coast?"
asked Lord Geoffry, anxiously.
"Within three weeks, I trust," replied the master--"not before.
Inside of that time I shall have marked out your route for you, and
started you in loyal hands upon it from one shelter to the other. In
the meantime, you must abide here with us plain folk of Windlestrae.
I am glad to say that we have heard no more of Danforth to-day."
Nor came there any such unwelcome tidings. The day passed quietly,
each hour benefiting Lord Armitage in body and spirit. The second
night that he slept under the Manor's roof was spent as tranquilly as
the first. His strength and vivacity were doubled by it. The next few
days he did nothing but eat and sleep, or, shut up for the most part
within the comfortable Purple Chamber, talk with Andrew and Boyd or
Mistress Annan of his travels and hardships. The rest and a sense of
security did him worlds of good, and he grew more entertaining and
full of merriment each hour of it.
"I never saw such a fellow!" Gilbert remarked once to Mistress Annan.
"One would think that he were at ease and freedom in some court,
instead of in daily danger of a hanging! What a careless, happy
temper! Hearken to him, laughing this minute with my lad, as though he
had never a trouble in the world!"
"And I am na sorry for it, sir," Mistress Annan stoutly responded;
"'tis o' God's favor that his heart is sae licht! Wad ye hae the
puir man gae roun' wi' the shadow o' the gibbet in front o' his twa
bonny eyes?" Mistress Annan, in truth, was quite bewitched with Lord
Geoffry's engaging glances and his gay tongue.
Both Andrew and his father observed one thing--how little the young
exile spoke of England; of his home there, or of the Lowland life and
cities. But he explained this one morning by confessing that he had
lived most of his life in Paris, his only brother, Guy, looking after
the family estate.
"I am more a Frenchman than an Englishman, I fear," he admitted,
smiling; and often, as if unconsciously, he would begin a sentence in
the French, that seemed to come upon his lips spontaneously; and the
light songs he hummed were echoes of the gay days of Fontainebleau
and the court of Louis XV. But, French or English, all the little
household agreed that a more gallant, a jollier spirit had never sat
at their table, or whiled away long evenings with reminiscences of
famous men, fair women, and strange adventures.
It was not until the third day, by the way, that they discovered him
to be a Roman Catholic; but then so great a proportion of the Stewart
adherents were of the older faith that Gilbert was not displeased.
Besides, the refugee was quite as devout at the morning and evening
prayers and accompanying Bible-reading of the Manor family as Mistress
Annan herself. That good woman was so edified by Lord Geoffry's
respect to religion and solemn recognition of Providence in his
escapes that she confessed to Girzie Inglis, her head hand-maiden:
"Aiblins thae Papists are nae all sic children o' the Deil, as I hae
been tauld! Yon's a gude young man--a gude young man! The Lord bring
him to mair pairfect licht!"
So passed four days. At noon of the fourth the sky was overcast. In
less than an hour thick mist and rain shut out almost all the light,
and it grew so dark that the Manor had to be illumined by candles. At
supper everybody was in the best of moods; Gilbert at the head of the
table, the red firelight showing his grim face relaxed as he listened
to Lord Geoffry's keen speeches; Andrew next the knight; and Mistress
Annan forgetting to put her cup to her lips or adjust her cap more
trimly, in her reluctant enjoyment of such unaccustomed fun. "I fear
me 'tis no Christian behavior in me to be sae frivolous!" her
Presbyterian conscience whispered; but she laughed all the more in
spite of the Presbyterian conscience. Neil Auchcross, Boyd's main
manager of the farm, was the only other person for whom a cover was
laid. The table was bountifully spread, and Mistress Annan had set it
with their store of silver, in honor of Lord Geoffry. In the kitchen
the more menial servants were also supping.
Suddenly, in a brief silence throughout the dining-parlor, there came
a sound to the ears of each one present. It struck them all alike with
alarm. Lusty voices, not far off, were singing together.
"Hark!" exclaimed Boyd, "what do you think that sound can be?"
Auchcross leaped up and threw open the heavy window.
Through the mist and darkness rang into the cheerful old room the
notes of a familiar drinking-song:
... "King George, God bless him forever!
And down with the _White Cockades!_"...
The trampling of hoofs, the dull clank of steel, accompanied this
chorus, borne on the murky breeze of the night.
"Danforth's cavalry!" cried Boyd and Auchcross.
"What! coming up toward Windlestrae?" exclaimed Lord Geoffry,
springing from his seat.
"I fear it--I fear it!" muttered Boyd, leaning out of the casement
into the driving mist. The rest hearkened at his back, breathless.
The roystering voices, the thud of hoofs and a single whinny, sounded
nearer than before.
Gilbert drew himself quickly inside the room again and pulled Neil and
the shutters with him.
"It is! It is Danforth!" he cried. "This misty night, of all others!
We have not a moment to waste! They may have set out directly for the
Manor to see what discoveries can be made here. Very good! Andrew, ask
no questions, but assemble all the household in the hall! Neil, go you
to find Hugh and Malcolm. My lord, with me to the Purple Chamber--and
the Mouse's Nest!"
The singers in their saddles were not fifty yards off by the time
Andrew, Neil, and Mistress Annan had executed Boyd's orders, in
ignorance of what was to be gained by them; and seen the four or
five women and as many men-servants, constituting the Windlestrae
household, seated on the benches and stools in the hall. Each one knew
what was the imminent danger which had stolen a march on them and
their guest. Each was prepared to do all possible to avert it.
Mistress Annan and the maids were so white and trembling that Andrew
feared discovery through their very looks. But Armitage was his next
thought. Turning his back on the confused and whispering group in the
hall, he dashed up-stairs.
"Back, son!" Gilbert Boyd exclaimed, sternly, catching the lad in his
arms on the landing-place. "Back, I say! He is safe!"
"Safe? Lord Geoffry? Is he in the Mouse's Nest? Oh, father, tell me!"
The sound of the singing, mingled with calls and something like
argument, as if the intruders were discussing the direction of the
Manor House in the fog, now were clearly audible. Boyd sprang
down-stairs into the hall, drawing Andrew with him.
"Girzie!" cried he--"Mistress Annan! They have turned up from the
gate! Bring candles--candles--from the table."
They were back with them at once, the grease dripping to the floor
through the trembling of their hands. Gilbert motioned them all not to
move from the settles along the wainscot. "Sit ye still there," he
whispered, hoarsely. He dropped into an arm-chair beside the candles,
flapped open some book which he carried, and exclaimed, in a firm
voice, "Let us sing the praise--of God--in the Thirtieth Psalm."--and
thereupon led off the verse!
Andrew caught the idea that lay behind this extraordinary conduct. But
could Windlestrae seem to Colonel Danforth a quiet Scotch household,
engaged in the usual family prayers, untroubled by trembling hearts or
the care of a Jacobite refugee?
Somehow or other he and the rest found voice to unite in the psalm
with the master. Those approaching outside heard the melody. Then came
a louder trampling, the thud of dismounting riders, loud, coarse
accents, and spurs jingling on the very porch.
A thundering knock broke off the Thirtieth Psalm in its second verse.
Mistress Annan gasped audibly in terror.
"Halloo there! Open, in the King's name!" rang out a stern voice.
"Andrew, open the door!" commanded Gilbert.
Andrew obeyed.