THE FORLORN HOPE
IT can be bitter cold in Carlisle, when the wind raves down from the
Border country and the rain will not be quiet; but never had the grey
town shown more cheerless than it did to the Prince’s eyes when,
six days before Christmas, he rode in with his retreating army. The
brief, sudden warmth of the victory at Clifton was forgotten. They had
travelled all night, over distressing roads, fetlock deep in mud. They
were strained to breaking-point, after incessant marches, day after day
seeing the footmen cover their twenty miles with bleeding feet. They
were disillusioned, hopeless, sport for any man to laugh at whose faith
went no farther than this world’s limits.
For the Prince, when he got inside the Castle, and gave audience to
Mr. Hamilton, the governor, there was worse trouble brewing. Hamilton,
caring only for the Stuart’s safety, was resolute to hold Carlisle
against the pursuing Hanoverians, encamped at Hesket, within an easy
day’s march of the city. He pointed out, with a clear reasoning beyond
dispute, that the Castle was strong to stand a siege, that the Duke of
Cumberland would halt to capture it, knowing it the key of the Border
country, that a small garrison could ensure the Stuart army a respite
from pursuit until they joined their friends in Scotland.
“I decline, Mr. Hamilton,” said the Prince sharply. “You can hold
out--for how long?”
“For a week at least, your Highness--ten days, may be. They say the
Duke has no artillery with him yet.”
“But the end--the end will be the same, soon or late.”
“A pleasant end, if it secures your safety. Oh, think, your Highness!
You’ve five thousand men with you, and we are less than a hundred, all
told. I tell you, I have thought out all this. The garrison has thought
it out, and--and we are bent on it.”
“My men would not buy safety at the price. How could they? No, no, Mr.
Hamilton. Your garrison shall take their chance in the open with us.”
Yet that night the Prince could only sleep by snatches. Throughout this
swift campaign, opposed to all the prudences of warfare, his thought
that had been constantly for the welfare of his soldiery, so far as he
could compass it. And Hamilton had planned a gallant chance of safety
for them. Undoubtedly, the plan was good.
To and fro his thoughts went, and they gained clearness as the night
went on. For himself, he had no care either way. He had left hope
behind at Derby, for his part. His heart was not broken yet, but it was
breaking; and, if he had found leisure during this wakeful night for
one private, selfish prayer, it would have been that he might die at
dawn, facing the Duke’s motley army of pursuit. For the Prince was not
himself only, fighting his battle against circumstance with a single
hand; he was bone of the Stuart fathers who had gone before, and death
had always seemed as good a friend as life, so long as it found him
with straight shoulders and head up to the skies.
There was the garrison here, resolved to die with gallantry. There was
his army, horsemen saddle-sore and footmen going with bleeding feet for
Stuart love. And one or other must be sacrificed. It was no easy riddle
for any man to solve--least of all for a Prince whose soul knew deeper
sickness than usual men’s, whose body was racked by long riding through
wet roads. He had an aching tooth, moreover, that moved him to get up
at last, and light his black clay pipe, and pace up and down the room
allotted to him in the castle.
He was no figure to entice the ladies who had danced with him, some
months ago, at Holyrood. It was the man’s business that claimed him
now, and he fought out the battle of Stuart pity against the bigger,
urgent need.
At dawn he went down, and met the Governor coming up the stair. “Your
garrison can have their wish, Mr. Hamilton,” he said quietly. “It seems
the better of two evil ways.”
“Can you spare twenty of your men, your Highness? Some few of us have
fallen sick since you marched south, and we need strengthening.”
And the Prince laughed, because pity and heart-sickness compelled it.
“I can spare anything just now,” he said, “even to the half of my
kingdom--the kingdom that Lord Murray hopes to win for me in Scotland.”
“There are better days coming--believe me----”
“To-day is enough for you and me, Mr. Hamilton. My faith, thank God,
teaches me so much, in spite of a raging tooth.”
He went out, and in the courtyard encountered a friend grown dear
to him during a forward march and a retreat that had given men
opportunities enough to prove each other. It was Colonel Towneley,
whose name even before the Rising had stood for all that Catholic
Lancashire had found likeable--Towneley, who had joined the southward
march with the loyal company known as the Manchester Regiment;
Towneley, who was resolute and ardent both, two qualities that do not
always run together. “Mr. Hamilton is insistent to hold the Castle,”
said the Prince, with the sharpness that was always a sign of trouble
on other folk’s behalf.
“Yes, your Highness. I learned yesterday that he’s of my own mind. If a
hundred men can save five thousand, why, the issue’s plain.”
“He needs twenty volunteers to strengthen the garrison.”
A sudden light came into Towneley’s face--a light not to be feigned,
or lit by any random spark of daring that dates no farther back than
yesterday. “By your leave,” he said quietly, “he needs nineteen only.
I am privileged to be the first.”
The Prince laid a hand on his shoulder. “Towneley, I cannot spare you!
Let younger men step in. There’s Lochiel, and you, and Sir Jasper Royd,
men I’ve grown to love--I cannot spare one of you.”
Towneley met the other’s glance and smiled. “I had a dream last night,”
he said.
“But, friend, it is reality to-day.”
“Let me be, your Highness. Perhaps dreams and reality are nearer than
we think. I dreamed that I knelt with my head on the block, and heard
the axe whistle--and then--I woke in Paradise.”
“Towneley, you’re over-strained with all this devilish retreat----”
“Your pardon, but I speak of what I know. I woke in Paradise, your
Highness, and found leisure to think of my sins. It was a long
thinking. But there was one comfort stayed by me--my Stuart loyalty.
Look at it how I would, there had been no flaw in it. The dream”--again
the lightening of the face--“the dream contents me.”
A little later they went out into Carlisle street. Wet and chilly as
the dawn was, both soldiery and townsfolk were astir; and the Prince
and Towneley, who had talked together of things beyond this day’s
needs, faced the buzz and clatter of the town with momentary dismay.
The Prince was losing a friend, tried and dear; but he had lost more at
Derby, and dogged hardihood returned to him. He looked at the way-worn
men who faced him, eager to obey the Stuart whom they idolised,
wherever he bade them go.
“We march north to-day, leaving the garrison here,” he said, a
straight, kingly figure of surprising charm--charm paid for in advance
and royally. “There are twenty needed to volunteer--for certain death,
my friends. I have no lies for you; and I tell you it is certain death.”
“Nineteen, your Highness,” corrected Towneley.
“Nineteen are needed. I forgot that Colonel Towneley----”
He got no farther for a while. Wherever a man of Lancashire stood, in
among the crowd, a great cheer went up. And Towneley, because he was
human, was glad that these folk, who knew his record, loved him quite
so well.
What followed was all simple, human, soon over, as great happenings
are apt to be. There was Carlisle street, with its gaping townsfolk,
chattering foolishly and asking each other how these restless
Highlanders would affect the profits of good shopkeepers; there was
the Castle, set in a frame of murky rain, and, in front of it, Prince
Charles Edward, asking for nineteen volunteers to follow Colonel
Towneley’s lead.
Even the townsfolk ceased balancing their ledgers. They saw only one
face in this crowded street--the Prince’s, as he stood divided between
high purpose and sorrow for the toll of human sacrifice that is asked
of all fine enterprises. They saw him as he was--no squire of dames,
good at parlour tricks, no pretty fool for ballad-mongers, but a
Christian gentleman, with sorrow in his eyes and a hard look of purpose
round about his mouth and chin.
“Colonel Towneley,” the Prince was saying gravely, “your gallantry
has left me no choice in this. God knows how willingly I’d take your
place.” And then, because a full heart returns to old simplicities,
his voice broke and he stretched out a hand. “Towneley,” he went on,
in lowered tones, “we’re in the thick of trouble, you and I, and yours
is the easier death, I think. I covet it--and Towneley, journeys
end----you know the daft old proverb.”
There was a moment’s pause. The rain dripped ceaselessly. The wind
struck sharp and cruel from the east, as it can strike nowhere surely
as in Carlisle and grey Edinburgh. Yet no man heeded, for they knew
that they had royalty among them here. And Colonel Towneley, for his
part, began to sob--the tears coursing down his rugged, weather-beaten
face, not because he had to die within a week or two, but because he
was compelled to say good-bye to one who, in conduct and in faith,
seemed nearer to the stars than he.
“Towneley”--the Prince’s voice was raised again, for he cared not who
knew his old, deep-seated love of Lancashire--“Towneley, I was taught
as a lad to like your country. Your men are loyal--your women ask it of
you--but I warn volunteers again that they go to certain death.”
“Just to another life, your Highness. I have no doubts; believe me,
I have none. In one place or another--why, we shall see the Stuart
crowned again. Sir, I thank God for this privilege; it goes far beyond
my own deserts.”
So then there was no more to be said. A great gentleman had spoken,
content to take death’s hand as he would take a comrade’s; and when
such speak, the lies and subterfuges of common life drift down the wind
like thistledown. The townsfolk of Carlisle began to ask themselves if,
after all, they had balanced up their ledgers rightly. These gentry, in
the east wind and the rain, seemed to pass to and fro a coinage, not of
metal but of the heart. And the coinage rang true.
Again there was a silence. And then the Prince asked gravely who would
volunteer for death. There was a noisy press of claimants for the
honour; but first among them was Rupert, putting bulkier men aside as
he forced his way forward to the Prince.
“I, your Highness,” he said quietly. “I was bred in Lancashire, like
Colonel Towneley, and I claim second place.”
“And why?” asked two or three behind him jealously.
Rupert turned, with a grave, disarming smile. Past weaknesses, past
dreams of heroism, the slow, long siege of Windyhough, went by him
as things remembered, but of little consequence. He felt master of
himself, master of them all, and with a touch of pleasant irony he
recalled past days.
“Because, gentlemen, I am God’s fool, and I know not how to live, but I
know how to die. That is the one trade I’ve learned.”
There was no answer. There could be no answer. This man with the lean
body and the purpose in his face was innocent of guile, and fearless,
and strangely dominant. And then at last the Prince smiled--the
fugitive, rare smile that few had captured since Derby and retreat.
“I believe you, sir,” he said. “To know how to die--there is no better
trade to learn.”
Then Maurice pushed forward, eager for the forlorn hope, and moved,
too, by the old, abiding instinct to stand by and protect his elder
brother. And Sir Jasper, unswerving until now, was moved by sharp
self-pity. He had been glad that Rupert should prove himself at heavy
cost; glad that he himself could surrender the dearest thing he had to
the Prince’s need; but all his fatherhood came round him, like a mist
of sorrow.
“One son is enough to give your Highness,” he said, with direct and
passionate appeal to the Prince. “I’m not too old to help garrison
Carlisle, and my wife will need a young arm to protect her later on;
let me take Maurice’s place.”
It was then the Prince found his full stature. In retreat, in sickness
of heart, under temptation to deny his faith in God and man, the Stuart
weighed Sir Jasper’s needs, found heart to understand his mood, and
smiled gravely. “There are so many claimants, sir, that I shall not
permit more than one man from any house to share the privilege. As for
Maurice, I shall have need of him at my side--and of you--I cannot
spare you.”
The tradesmen of Carlisle looked on and wondered. This was no
shopkeeping. From the sleet and the tempest that had bred them, it
was plain that these gentry had learned knighthood. Jack Bownas, the
bow-legged tailor, who had held stoutly that kings and gentry were much
like other men, save for the shape of their breeks, was bewildered by
this scene in Carlisle’s ugly street. He was aware that men are not
equals, after all, that some few--gently or lowly born--are framed to
claim leadership by steadfastness of soul and outlook. “I’d like to
tailor for yond Prince,” he growled to his neighbour.
“So you’ve turned Charlie’s man?” the other answered, dour and hard--a
man who had yielded to north-country weather, instead of conquering it.
“For me, he’s a plain-looking chiel enough, as wet and muddied-o’er as
you and me, Jack.”
“He’s a man, or somewhere near thereby, and I build few suits these
days for men. I spend my days in cutting cloth for lile, thin-bodied
folk like ye.”
“I’m a good customer o’ yours, and there are more tailors in Carlisle
than one.”
Jack Bownas, prudent by habit, was loath to lose customers. He pondered
the matter for a moment. “Awa wi’ ye,” he said at last. “I’ve seen the
Prince. You may gang ower to Willie Saunderson’s, if you wull. He makes
breeks for little-bodied men.”
It was the tailor’s one and only gift to the Stuart, this surrender of
a customer; but, measured by his limitations, it was a handsome and a
selfless tribute to the Cause. Born to another calling, he might, with
no greater sacrifice, have set his head upon the block.
And through all this to-and-froing of the townsfolk, through the rain
and the bitter wind and the evil luck, the forlorn hope--twenty of
them--halted at the gateway of the Castle before going in.
Rupert turned round to grip his father’s hand. “Goodbye, sir,” he said
gravely.
“Goodbye, my lad.”
And that was all their farewell. No more was needed, for all the
rough-and-ready training of their lives at Windyhough had been a
preparation for some such gallant death as this.
Colonel Towneley marshalled his volunteers in front of the gateway, and
the bitter wind drove through them.
The Prince, with his shoulders square to the wind, took the salute of
men soon to die. And then he drooped a little, as all his race did when
they were thinking of the needs of lesser men. “Friends,” he said,
lifting his head buoyantly again, “there’s no death--and by and by I
shall be privileged to meet you.”
Throughout this march to Derby, and back again to wet Carlisle, there
had been no pageantry to tempt men’s fancy. There were none now. A
score of soldiers, drenched to the skin, went in at the Castle gateway,
and the rain came down in grey, relentless sheets. Prince Charles
Edward, as he moved slowly north at the head of his five thousand men,
was still fighting the raging toothache that the hardships of the march
had brought him. And toothache sounds a wild, disheartening pibroch of
its own.
The night passed quietly in Carlisle, and the garrison was grave and
business-like, as men are when they stand in face of certain death and
begin to reckon up their debts to God.
Colonel Towneley had persuaded Hamilton to get to bed and take his fill
of sleep, and had assumed command; and about three of the morning, as
he went his round, he came on Rupert, standing at his post. Towneley
had the soldier’s eye for detail, and he glanced shrewdly at the
younger man.
“You were the first to volunteer with me?” he asked, tapping him
lightly on the shoulder. “I remember your tired, hard-bitten face.”
“It was my luck, sir--and I’ve had little until now.”
“You should not be sentrying here. We’ve had no easy march to-day. You
had earned a night’s rest.”
“I did not need it. I asked to take my place here.”
Towneley looked him up and down, then tapped him lightly on the
shoulder. “By gad! you’ve suffered, one time or another,” he said
unexpectedly. “You’re young to have earned that steady voice.
Good-night, my lad.”
The next day was quiet in Carlisle, and the only news that came into
the Castle was that the Duke of Cumberland still lay at Hesket,
awaiting the implements of siege that were slow in reaching him; but
the day after he brought his men into the city, and invested the town
as closely as his lack of artillery allowed. It was a mistaken move
on his part, as the shrewdest of his advisers pointed out to him; but
the Duke had answered all wiser counsels with the blunt assurance that
he had time to stay and butcher a few rebels here in Carlisle by way
of whetting his appetite for the pleasant shambles to come afterwards
in Scotland. And those few who were English among his following were
aghast at the licence Cumberland allowed himself in speaking of
enemies, misguided to their view, but brave and honourable men, content
to face long odds.
And again there was quiet within the Castle. Two days passed, and
still the Duke was waiting for the artillery that was forcing its way
painfully through roads ankle-deep in mud.
Rupert, for his part, was entirely at home with the work asked of
him. He was defending walls besieged, and nothing in the world was
happening, as at Windyhough; but his task was easier here, because he
had men to share the hardship with him, because he did not need, day by
day, to fight single-handed against the sleep that had kept him company
in Lancashire.
Hamilton, the Governor, and Colonel Towneley--seasoned men both--were
astonished by the toughness and knowledge of defence shown by this
lean-bodied lad whose energy seemed tireless. And then they learned
from one of the Lancashire volunteers how he had kept Windyhough for
the King, and they told each other that it was hard on the lad to have
to face a second siege so soon.
“There’s one who should ride far,” said Towneley to the Governor once,
after Rupert had got up from dining with them to take his post.
“Yes,” said Hamilton, with tired mockery of the faith he held--“as far
as the stars, Towneley--on a winged horse--like the Prince, God bless
him! like Oliphant of Muirhouse--like all the dreamers who think this
world well lost for loyalty.”
“Well, we’re fools of the same breed,” put in the other dryly. “No need
to laugh at your own regiment.”
“Oh, I don’t laugh! I’m tired--just tired, Towneley. I tell you,
this business of holding Carlisle, while you others were facing the
stark brunt of it, has made me peevish. I shall be an old woman if
Cumberland’s artillery does not reach him soon.”
Towneley filled his glass afresh, held it up to the light, glanced
across at the Governor with clear, unhurried comradeship. “I know,
Hamilton--I know. I’ve felt the same--since Derby. The Prince has felt
it. The Highlanders have felt it.”
“You were in the open,” growled Hamilton.
“In retreat, and asking battle all the while--battle that did not come.
And we were saddle-sore and wet, with an east wind blowing through us.
You were snug in Carlisle here, Hamilton. I tell you so.”
And they came near to quarrel, as men do when their hearts grow cramped
from lack of action. And then Towneley laughed, remembering his whole,
round faith in this life and the next.
“We’re grown men,” he said, “and very near to death. We’d best not
quarrel, like children in the nursery.”
The next day the garrison looked out on a gentle fall of sleet that
half hid the Duke’s investing army. It was the day of Christmas, and
those without might do as they liked; but the Governor and Colonel
Towneley were aware that Catholic souls must keep the feast of great
thanksgiving.
They made their rounds with no less zeal, but with greater precision,
maybe, knowing that the sword-hilt is fashioned like the Cross. And
about seven of the evening they sat down--Rupert with them, and all
the gentry of the garrison who could be spared--at the well-spread
supper-board.
They were simple at heart, these revellers who had known more fast than
feast days lately. They had gone to Mass that morning with thoughts
of the Madonna, who had changed the world’s face, giving men a leal
and happy reverence for their women-folk. They had remembered these
women-folk with a pang of tenderness and longing knowing they would
not see another Christmas dawn. But now they sat down to supper with
appetites entirely of this world and a resolve to wear gay hearts on
their sleeves.
It was an hour later that Hamilton, the Governor, rose and passed his
wine across a great jug of water that stood in front of him. “To the
King, gentlemen!” he said.
And, from the acclamation, it would have seemed they toasted one who
was firmly on the throne, with gifts to offer loyalty. Instead, their
King was an exile on French shores, and the only gift he had for them
was this grace they had found to die selflessly and with serenity for
the Stuart whom they served.
For a doomed garrison, they had supped well; and when Towneley got
to his feet by and by and sang a Lancashire hunting-song, all in the
broad, racy tongue of the good county, they called for another, and
yet another. Discipline--of a drastic sort--was waiting for them.
Meanwhile, they were resolved to take their ease.
And suddenly there was a knocking on the door, and then a rattling
of the latch, and the sound of stumbling feet outside. And then the
door opened, and into the middle of the uproar and the laughter came a
figure so ludicrous, so dishevelled, that their merriment was roused
afresh.
The man was dripping from head to foot--not with clean rain, but
with muddy water that streaked his face, his hands, his clothes.
And he stumbled foolishly as he moved to the table, and, without a
by-your-leave, poured himself a measure of wine and gulped it down.
Then he tried to straighten himself, and looked round at the company.
“I carry dispatches, and--and I’m nearly done,” he said.
There was no laughter now, for his weakness and his errand dwarfed all
comedy. It was Rupert, remembering long years of hero-worship, who
first saw through the dishevelment and mud that disguised this comer to
the feast. He crossed to the messenger’s side, and poured out another
measure for him.
“You’re Oliphant of Muirhouse,” he said, “and--you steadied me in the
old days at Windyhough.”
Oliphant had the gift of remembering the few who were conspicuously
leal, instead of the many whose weakness did not count in the strong
game of life. “So you’ve found your way, as I promised you?” he said,
with a sudden smile. “And it tastes sweet, Rupert? Gad! I remember my
first taste of the Road.”
And then Oliphant, feeling his strength ebb, crossed to the Governor
and laid his dispatches on the table. He explained, in the briefest
way, that he had ridden across country from Northumberland, changing
horses by the way, had found Carlisle invested, had been compelled,
lacking the password, to run a sentry through and afterwards to swim
the moat.
With the singular clearness that, in sickness or in health, goes
with men who carry a single purpose, he gave one dispatch into the
Governor’s hand. “That is for you, sir. This other must be carried
forward to the Prince--must be carried instantly. Its contents may
alter the movements of the whole army. The safety of his Highness is
concerned.”
He paused a moment, daunted by a weakness extreme and pitiful. “I had
hoped to carry the message on myself, after an hour’s sleep or two,” he
went on; “but I’m as you see me--there are times when a man can do no
more.”
The Governor was moved by Oliphant’s childlike, unquestioning devotion.
The man stood there, drenched and muddied, after a ride that would
have broken most folk’s wish to carry any message on. He had passed
through besieging troops, and cooled his ardour in a moat whose waters
were nipped by a northeast wind. And yet he seemed to ask forbearance,
because he was not strong enough to ride out again at dawn on the
Stuart’s business.
“Be easy, Mr. Oliphant,” said Hamilton. “I shall find you a hard-riding
messenger.”
Oliphant’s mind was clear as ever for the detail that every man must
watch whose heart is set on high adventure. He looked round the board,
and the face that claimed his glance was Rupert’s. Sharp and clear,
old scenes at Windyhough recurred to him--the pretty, pampered mother,
the weakling heir who longed to prove himself, the memories of his own
unhappy boyhood that Rupert had stirred at every meeting.
“By your leave, Mr. Hamilton,” he said, “I shall choose my own
messenger.”
The Governor nodded gravely. “It is your due, sir--much more than that
is your due, if I could give it you.”
“Sir Jasper Royd is my friend--and he will be glad to know that his son
is trusted with dispatches.”
Rupert took fire from the torch that this harassed messenger had
carried into Carlisle Castle. Not long ago he had been a stay-at-home,
fenced round with women and old men; and now, by some miracle, he was
chosen to ride hard through open country.
Across his eagerness, across the free and windy gladness that had come
to him, there struck a chillier air; and he stayed for a thought of
comrades left in the rear-guard of the action. It was the old, abiding
instinct that ran with the simple Stuart loyalty.
“Mr. Oliphant,” he said quietly, “we are waiting here for certain
death. I choose to stay.”
“You choose to stay?” echoed Oliphant.
“Because I volunteered--because you must take these dispatches north
yourself. I tell you, sir, you must get free of Carlisle. It is death
to stay.”
Oliphant’s failing strength rallied for a moment. He no longer saw the
strained, eager face of this youngster who had given him hero-worship,
who was pleading with him for his own safety. Instead, he saw a
mountain-burn, high up on the braes of Glenmoriston, and a summer’s
day lang syne gone by, and one who walked with him. They had talked
together, he and she, and she had been kind and winsome, but no more;
and with that dream, high as the stars, yet vastly human, had ended his
foolish quest for happiness.
He saw her now with the young eyes that had sought answering fire from
hers and had not found response. He saw the whaups wheeling and crying
over their heads, heard the tinkling hurry of the burn, the lilt of the
breeze through the heather.
“Death?” he said turning at last to Rupert. “My lad, there are worse
friends.”
When they came to see him, after he had fallen into a chair, his arms
thrown forward on the table, they found a gash across his ribs, of
which he had not spoken. He had earned it during the encounter with the
sentry, before he swam the moat.
“Hard-bitten!” muttered the Governor, with frank pleasure in the man.
“Hard-bitten! The Prince is happy in his servants.”
After they had carried the messenger to bed, the Governor drew Rupert
apart. “See here, boy,” he said sharply, “your sense of honour is
devilish nice, but it needs roughening just now. You volunteered for
death? Well, the order is countermanded--or, maybe, death’s waiting for
you close outside. Anyway, you go out to-night--at once.”
“I would rather see my duty that way, sir, if I could.”
“Oh, to the deuce with your scruples! You’re young, and think it a
fine, happy business to die for the Prince. It’s a braver thing to live
for him--through the stark murk of it, lad. Here are your dispatches.”
The Governor, at the heart of him, was glad to feel that this
promising youngster, who had shown patience and gallantry in siege,
should have his chance of a run for liberty. He hurried him out of the
Castle and down to the edge of the moat. The night was thick with sleet
and wind, friendly for the enterprise because it stifled sound.
“You can swim?” said the Governor.
“Passably, sir.”
“Then slip in, and play about like a water-rat until you find your
chance to land between the sentries. Make your way into the town and
hire a horse at the first tavern. They do not know you in Carlisle.”
“And you, Mr. Hamilton?” asked Rupert, with the old simplicity.
“I? I shall take care of my own troubles, lad. Meanwhile, you’ve enough
of your own to keep you busy.”
The passage of the moat was cold enough to keep Rupert intent on
present business. The need afterwards to pick his way between the
sentries, who were cursing northern weather, left him no time for
thought of those he left behind in Carlisle. And then he had to keep a
steady head, a quiet, impassive face, as he bargained with the host of
the Three Angels Tavern touching the hire of a horse to carry him on an
errand of gallantry to Gretna Green. He played his part well, this heir
of Sir Jasper’s, for the song of the open hazard was lilting at his
ears.
He left the town behind him, and got out into the desolate, wild
country that lay between Carlisle and the Border. Because he had no
thought whether his horsemanship were good or bad, so long as it helped
him along the track of a single purpose, he rode easily and well. After
the quiet of Windyhough, after the surprising journey to Carlisle, the
second siege there, with nothing happening, there was a keen, unheeding
freedom about this northward ride. He knew the Prince’s route, had only
to spur forward on the Annan road to overtake him, soon or late. He was
wet to the skin, and not strong of body; but his soul, like a steady,
hidden lamp, warmed all this enterprise for him. His one trouble was
that his borrowed nag was carrying a clinking shoe.
As he crossed the bridge at Gretna he heard two horses splashing
through the sleety track in front, and wondered idly who were keeping
him company on such an ill-found, lonely road. When he got to the
forge, intent on having his horse re-shod, he saw the rough figure of
the smith standing swart against the glow from the open smithy door,
fronting a man good to look at and a woman whose face was shrouded by a
blue-grey hood.
“It’s lucky I was late with my work, and hammering half into the
night,” the smith was saying. “The fees are double, sir, after it
strikes midnight,” he added, with true Scots caution.
“Treble, if it pleases you. Marry us, blacksmith, and don’t haggle.
We’ve no time to waste.”
When they turned, man and wife, to get to saddle again, they saw Rupert
waiting, his arm slipped through his horse’s bridle.
“Good luck to you both!” he said, with the easiness that sat well on
him these days. “My need is to have a loose shoe set right--and I, too,
have no time to waste.”
The bride lifted her blue-grey hood and glanced at him, aware of
some romance deeper than her own that sounded in the voice of this
slim, weather-beaten stranger. “Dear, will you ask a favour of this
gentleman?” she said, touching her bridegroom’s arm. “He wishes us
luck, and he has a loose horseshoe to give us. He comes in a good hour,
I think.”
Rupert stooped. The shoe came easily away into his hand, and the bride,
as she took it from him, looked up at him as if she had known him long
and found him trusty. “You carry the luck-giver’s air,” she said. “I
have seen it once or twice, and--it cannot be mistaken.”
“Likely,” said Rupert, with a touch of the old bitterness. “I have
found little of my own--till lately.”
“Well, as for luck,” put in the blacksmith dryly, “I fancy you’ve all
three got more than the poor fools who came this way five days ago.
Five thousand o’ them, so it was said--five thousand faces that looked
as if they were watching their own burial--and the pipes just sobbing
like bairns left out i’ the cold, and the Pretender with his bonnie
face set as grim as a Lochaber blade----”
“The Prince--have you later news of him?” asked Rupert indifferently,
as if he talked of the weather.
“Whisht, now! We have to call him the Pretender, whatever a body may
think privately. Yes, I’ve news of him--news comes north and south to
Gretna, for it’s a busy road. They tell me he’s in Glasgow, and minded
to bide there for a good while.”
The bridegroom laughed--the low, possessive laugh of pride that is the
gift of newly-wedded males. “Princes come and go, but a good wife comes
only once. Good-night to you, for we’re pursued.”
The bride gave Rupert a long, friendly look as she turned to get to
saddle. “I thank you for your luck, sir,” she said.
It was so they parted, not to meet again; but Rupert, as he waited
restlessly until his horse was shod, was aware that this lady of the
grey-blue hood had loosened his grim hold of life a little, because
some note in her voice, some turn of the pretty head, had reminded him
of Nance Demaine--Nance, half-forgotten, pushed into the background of
this ride perilous that was to give him manhood at long last. And a
sudden, foolish longing came to him to be at Windyhough again, seeing
Nance come into a dull room, to make it, by some magic of her own, a
place full of charm and melody.
“They say the Duke of Cumberland is staying to take Carlisle, sir,”
said the blacksmith, putting the finishing touches to his work.
“Yes. So they told me when I rode through to-day.”
“Well, it gives these other chiels a chance, and I’m no saying I’m
sorry.”
“Nor I,” said Rupert as he got to saddle, and pressed a crown-piece
into the blacksmith’s hand.
As he rode forward through the sleet, and was half-way to Annan in the
Border country, a horseman, better mounted than himself, overtook him
and drew rein sharply. There was a ragged sort of moonlight stealing
through the darkness of the night, and he saw the face of a man,
elderly and hard and in evil temper, peering at him through the gloom.
“I’m seeking my daughter, sir,” said the stranger, without preamble of
any kind. “She was married at Gretna just now--I was too late to stop
that--but I trust to make her a widow before the night is out. Have
they passed you on the road?”
“Was she wearing a grey-blue hood, sir?”
“How should I know? Have they passed you, I say?”
“No, but I watched them married at Gretna not long ago, and they rode
out ahead of me.”
“On which road?”
“They spoke”--even a white lie came unreadily to Rupert’s tongue--“they
spoke of turning right-handed towards Newcastle, I think.”
So then the stranger turned his horse sharply round, swore roundly at
his informant, and was gone without a good-night or a word of thanks.
And Rupert laughed as he trotted forward. He had faced many things
during his odd, disastrous five-and-twenty years--loneliness hard to
bear, good-humoured liking that was half-contempt from the men who
counted him a scholar, distrust and loathing of himself. But now he
felt strength come into his right hand, as a sword-hilt does. His feet
were set on the free, windy road. He had gone a little way to prove
himself, and the zest of it was like rare wine, that warms the fancy
but leaves both head and heart in a nice poise of sanity.
He thought of the lady in the grey-blue hood, and laughed again. He
knew now why he had lied to the pursuer. They were night-riders, like
himself, she and her groom; they had chosen the honest open, with peril
riding hard behind them. And, till he died, his sympathy would ever go
out now to those who took the dangerous tracks.