THE GLORY OF IT
THE Prince stayed in Glasgow with his army until the New Year was two
days in. And this was fortunate for Rupert, because it enabled him to
bring in his dispatches--after many a change of horses by the way--in
time to share the pleasant victory of Falkirk later on.
And Falkirk Battle, like Prestonpans at the beginning of this wild
campaign, showed the Prince quick in strategy beforehand, hot when the
fight was dinning round his ears. By sheer speed of generalship he got
his army to the rising ground which gave him the advantage, outwitting
General Hawley, who led the Hanoverian army. And then news was
brought--by Rupert, as it chanced--that Hawley could not get his cannon
up within firing distance, because the bogland was so sodden that the
wheels were axle-deep in mire. And so then the Prince, against Lord
Murray’s text-book warnings and advice, ordered a sharp attack. They
had the advantage of the hill; but the Prince, knowing the temper of
his Highlanders, chose to abandon that for the gain of instant action.
He was justified. His men were like dogs kept too long upon the chain,
savage for assault; and, when he led them down the hill, straight on to
the astonished enemy--busy still with the foundered gun-carriages--the
roar and speed of the attack swept all before it.
The fight was quick and bloody, till gloaming ended it. The odds were
three to two against the Prince; yet when the day’s business was
accomplished, there were six hundred killed of Hawley’s army, and many
wounded asking for the succour which the Stuart gave by habit, and much
artillery and ammunition captured.
It was in these days that Rupert found recompense for the way for once,
had faced the opposing odds with the practical, quiet courage, the
eager hope, that are seldom blended to a nicety in a man’s soul.
And while they rested after the battle, news came in that General
Hawley’s army had been increased by three thousand troops sent by
forced marches from Northumberland. Lord Murray’s arithmetic again took
panic; the Prince’s zeal caught fire; and once more, in this bloodless
battle of the council-chamber, it was the Scots prudence that won the
day.
The Prince’s army moved north, in retreat when advance was their
master-card to play. And again the Highland pipers played sorrow round
the hills, as if a mist came down. And Rupert found his strength come
supple to him, like a well-tried sword, because in the years behind he,
too, had known retreat.
They went north, and farther north, up into the beautiful, wild glens
that now were harsh with winter, though the hill-bred men liked the
naked pastures, the naked, comely trees, a little better than when the
warmth of summer clothed them.
It was not a battle, but a rout. The Prince had had his years behind.
Whenever a hazardous journey was planned, needing one resolute man to
follow it alone, the choice fell on him. He had joined the honourable
company of Night-Riders--those messengers who were seldom in the
forefront of public applause, but whose service to the Cause was beyond
all praise or recompense. There were some twenty of them, scattered up
and down the two countries. Oliphant of Muirhouse, Rupert--each one of
them was of the same build and habit--lean, untiring men who had earned
their optimism by the discipline the slow-working mills of God had
taught them--men who feared sloth, self-pity, prudence; men with their
eyes ever on the hills, where strength and the royal courage thrive.
Rupert had waited for his manhood; and now it grew to flower with
amazing speed and certainty. The muddled years behind, the scholarly
aloofness from life’s warfare and its seeming disillusions, grew faint
and shadowy. He went about the Prince’s business, a man carrying men’s
lives, and the joy of it was as if the pipes called him up and down the
broken country to swift and pleasant battle.
He learned much these days, as men do who ride with the lone hand on
the bridle-rein--learned to keep his body hard, and his soul clean,
because he was adventuring, not his own safety, but that of comrades
who trusted him. Trust? As he rode through the lonely glens, seeing
past days and future spread out before him like a clear-drawn map, he
grew more and more aware that there is no stronger stirrup-cup for a
rider-out to drink than the waters of deep trust. A man’s faith in
himself grows weak, or arrogant, or hardened; but the high trust given
him by others, who look to him and cannot see him fail, is like a fixed
star shining far ahead.
It was no easy life, as ease is counted. The year was getting on to
spring, as they reckon seasons London way; but here among the mountains
winter was tarrying, a guest who knew his welcome long outstayed, and
whose spite was kindled. Night by night, as Rupert went by the lonely
tracks, the wind blew keen and bitter from the east; and snow fell
often; and rheumatism, sharp and unromantic, was racking his wet body.
Yet still his knees were firm about the saddle, his handling of the
reins secure; for he was learning horsemanship these days.
And sometimes, at unlikeliest moments, there came a brief, bewildering
summer to his soul. He knew that Nance was thinking of him--was
trusting him, as all these others did. He would see the moors and
the denes that had bred him--would hear the pleasant folk-speech of
Lancashire, as he passed greeting with farmers on the road--would
remember the way of his heart, as it leaped out to Nance in the old,
unproven days. These were his intervals of rest; for God lets no man’s
zeal consume him altogether, until his time is ripe to go. And then he
would put dreams from him, as if they were a crime, and would touch his
pocket to learn if the dispatches were secure, and would ride forward,
carrying his life through the winding passes, through the Scottish
caution of lairds who were doubtful whether it were worth while to join
a Prince in hot retreat.
It was so he came to Culloden Moor--wet, rheumatic, and untiring--on
the Fifteenth of April, and had audience of the Prince. He had come
from the north side of the River Spey, and was ignorant that the enemy,
under the Duke of Cumberland’s command, was encamped not far away,
ready to give battle on the morrow.
The Prince acknowledged Rupert’s coming with a quick, friendly smile.
“Ah, you, sir! You’re the pick of my gentlemen since Oliphant of
Muirhouse died.”
And Rupert, forgetting that he had ridden far, carrying urgent news,
was aghast that one who had fed his boyish dreams--one who had
brightened the hard face of endeavour for him--should have gone out of
reach of human touch and speech. “He’s dead, your Highness? I--I loved
him,” he said brokenly.
“Then be glad,” said the Prince, as if he talked gently to a younger
brother. “He died in Carlisle Castle, after a cruel ride on my behalf.
But he was not taken, sir, as all the others were. There was Colonel
Towneley there--a comrade I had proved--and they tell me he’s on his
way south to Tower Hill. I would rather die as Oliphant--God rest
him!--died.”
Rupert, blind and heart-sick, fumbled for his dispatches--dispatches
that, twice to-day, had all but cost him his life--and handed them to
the Prince, who turned them over carelessly and put them down.
“By your leave,” said the Prince, with a quiet laugh, “these can wait a
little. There’s battle on the moor to-morrow.”
Then Rupert learned what was in the doing; and his first grief for
Oliphant grew dulled, because the chance of open fight had come, after
incessant riding through the nights that had brought him little company.
“There, you’ll need rest!” said the Prince, with a kindly touch on his
arm.
And again Rupert smiled, with disarming frankness. “I’ve had
five-and-twenty years of rest, your Highness. It is better to be up
Culloden braes to-morrow.”
“Gad, sir! you’re Oliphant--just Oliphant, come to life again, with all
his obstinate, queer zeal. Make your peace, lad, and sleep a while--we
come into our kingdom either way to-morrow.”
Through that night, in between the slumber that was forced on him by
sheer weight of tiredness, Rupert held fast the last words of the
Prince. It was their strength--the Stuart’s strength and his, that,
either way, they came into their kingdom. The Georgian troops, sleeping
or waking till the dawn’s bugle notes rang out, had only one way of
victory; they must conquer, or lose all, in this world’s battle; it was
a sealed riddle to them that a man may find true gain in loss.
The dawn came red and lonely over Culloden Moor, and the austere hills,
as they cleared their eyes of mist-grey sleep, looked down on a fury in
the making, on preparations for a battle whose tragedy is sobbing to
this day.
Rupert, his heart on fire as he went through that day’s eagerness--the
Prince, who found recompense in action for the indignities of
Derby--the Highlanders, who were fighting with the zest of children
dancing round a village Maypole--could never afterwards reconstruct the
sharp and shifting issues of the battle, could not guess how it came
that all their gallantry, their simple hope, were broken by the stolid
foreign soldiery.
Even at the bridge, where they came on with shield and dirk and
claymore against the Duke’s three lines of musketry--the first line
kneeling, the second stooping, the third standing to full height--when
they lay in tangled, writhing heaps, shot down at twenty paces, those
of the Highlanders whose eyes were clear above disasters of the body
were surprised that love of their Prince had not disarmed the musketry;
and they tried to get up again, and died in the simple faith that had
taught them how to fight and how to die.
The Prince galloped up to the company of MacDonalds, who had stood
sullenly aloof because, at the beginning of the fight, they had not
been given the first post of danger.
“MacDonalds!” he said. “Who comes with me to the bridge?”
They forgot their sulkiness, forgot allegiance to their chieftain.
There was the Stuart here, his face crimsoned by a glancing
musket-shot, his voice alive and dominant. From frank disaster, from
toothache and the miry roads, from this day’s battle, which had found
him skilled in fight, he had learned his kingship.
The MacDonald turned sharply round, putting himself between his
clansmen and the Prince. “We stay,” he said, with peremptory and harsh
command. “They would not give us the right wing of the battle--we’ll
take no other.”
The Prince saw them halt in the midst of their eager rush to serve
him--saw them look at each other, waver, and stand still. A call
stronger than his own had come to them--the call that is in each man’s
blood, blowing willy-nilly like the wind and bidding him obey the
teaching of dead forefathers. Their hearts were toward the Prince--they
hungered for this onset at the bridge--but they held back, just as at
Derby, because old allegiance was demanded by their chieftain.
“MacDonalds!” cried the Prince again, with desperate eagerness. “Who’s
for the bridge?”
And then, before he guessed their purpose, some of his gentlemen rode
close about him, clutched his reins, compelled him to desert the field.
“All’s lost, your Highness--except your safety,” said one.
He struggled to get free of them. “My pleasure,” he said hotly, “is to
die as poorer friends are doing.”
They would not listen. Their love of him--whether it took a misguided
form or no--compelled them to use force, to disregard commands,
entreaties. His vision, maybe, was clearer than their own. They were
concerned with his immediate welfare, could not look into the years
ahead that were to be a lingering, heart-broken death, instead of the
pleasant end he craved.
They got him to a place of safety, and he glanced at them with a
reproof so sad and desolate that for the first time they doubted their
own wisdom.
“Gentlemen, it was not well done,” he said, “but one day, if God wills,
I shall forgive you.”
Below them, the Duke of Cumberland had his way with the broken
Highlanders. Across the moor, and back again, his troopers swept, till
the field was like a shambles. The Highlanders disdained to ask for
quarter; the others were too drunk with lust of slaughter to think
of it; and the roll-call of the dead that day among the clans was a
tribute to the Stuart and their honour. There were near a quarter
wounded; but these were outnumbered by the dead.
And yet the Duke had not supped well enough. In his face, as he rode up
and down the field, was a light not good for any man to see--the light
that had touched it dimly when he laid siege to Carlisle and talked of
whetting his appetite by slaughter of its garrison.
He was unsatisfied, though the wind came down from the moor and sobbed
across the desolation he had made. He checked his horse, pointed to the
wounded.
“Dispatch these rebels, gentlemen,” he said to the officers about him.
And then, as at Carlisle, the English among his following withdrew from
the uncleanness of the man. “We are officers, your Highness,” said one.
“Aye, and gentlemen. I know your ladylike speech. For my part, I’m a
soldier----”
“A butcher, by your leave,” snapped the other.
The Duke turned savagely on him; but the English closed round their
comrade, and their meaning was plain enough to be read.
“Must I do the work myself?” he snarled.
“It would seem so, if it must be done.”
And afterwards the gloaming, sad and restless, crept down from the
grey hills, shrouding the dead and wounded. It found Cumberland master
of the field; but he was surfeited, and the true luck of the battle
was with those who had died in faith, or with those others of the
Prince’s army who were seeking cover among the northern hills. For it
is not gain or loss that matters, but the cleanly heart men bring to
acceptance of the day’s fortune.
Among the fugitives were some of the men of Lancashire who had ridden
out to join the Prince at Langton; and these foregathered, by some
clan instinct of their own, in a little wood five miles away from
the trouble of Culloden Moor. Sir Jasper was there, and Rupert, and
Maurice, all carrying wounds of one sort or another. Demaine’s bailiff
was there, untouched and full of grumbles as of old. But Squire Demaine
himself was missing, and young Hunter of Hunterscliff; and Maurice told
how he had seen them die, close beside him, at the ditch that lay fifty
paces from Culloden Bridge.
“God rest them!” said Sir Jasper, not halting for the sorrow that would
come by and by. “They’ve done with trouble, friends, but we have not.”
Half that night they rested in the sodden wood, with a chill wind for
blanket; but they were afoot again long before dawn, and overtook
the Prince’s company at Ruthven. A council was held just after their
arrival, and the Prince--who, before ever Culloden battle found him in
the thick of it, had not slept for eight-and-forty hours--was still
solicitous touching the welfare of his friends. He bade the native-born
make for their own homes, the English choose the likeliest road to
safety that offered; for himself, he would keep a few friends about
him, and would take his chance among the hills. And when his gentlemen
demurred, wishing to remain, he faced them with the pleasant humour
that no adversary could kill.
“I was not permitted to command when we were in advance,” he said;
“but, gentlemen, we’re in retreat--and surely I may claim the
privilege?”
When they had gone their separate ways in little
companies--reluctantly, and looked backward at the Stuart, who was
meat, and wine, and song to them--the Prince himself was left with ten
gentlemen about him. Nine of them were Scotsmen, but the tenth was
Rupert, who had a surprising gift these days for claiming the post of
direst hazard.
And through that sick retreat the scattered companies were aware of the
qualities that disaster brings out more clearly than any victory can
do. Oliphant of Muirhouse, dead for the Cause and happy in the end he
craved, had asked Sir Jasper long ago at Windyhough if Will Underwood,
brave in the open hunt, were strong enough to stand a siege; and these
fugitives, going east and west and north--hopeless and spurred forward
only by the pursuit behind, the homesickness ahead--were aware, each
one of the them, what Oliphant had meant.
The Highlanders, trudging over hill-tracks to their shieldings, were
buried in a mist of sorrow, that only battle could disperse. Lord
Murray, riding for his own country, was reflective, soured, and
peevish, because his cold arithmetic of war was disproven by results.
Yet, through the disillusion and weariness of this wild scamper for the
hills, the strong souls of the Rising proved their mettle. The Prince,
Lochiel, the good and debonair, Sir Jasper and his hunting men of
Lancashire--those who had lost most, because their hope had been most
keen, were the strong men in retreat.
And Rupert, sharing the Prince’s dangers and his confidence more
closely every day, rode up and down among the hills like a man
possessed by some good angel that would not let him fear, or rest, or
feel the aches that wet roads by day, wet beds by night entailed on
him. Whenever a messenger was needed to go into dangerous country and
fear nothing, he claimed first privilege; and it was granted him, for
he had learned a strange persuasiveness.
He was at Benbicula with the Prince, where they and the crew of a
small boat that had landed them met a storm of rain that was to last
for fourteen hours; where they found an empty cottage, with a store
of firelogs; where the Prince bought a cow for thirty shillings, and
proved himself the best cook of them all. They had food that night, and
a bottle of brandy among the six who still kept company together; and
these unwonted luxuries brought the best gift of all--sleep, that is
dear to buy when men have kept weariness at bay too long.
Rupert was at Corradale, too, where for three weeks they found
safety among the islanders of Uist. The royal baggage was no heavier
than a couple of shirts, and the Prince was housed in a byre so
weather-rotted that he had to sleep o’ nights under a tent made of
branches and cow-hides, to keep the rain from him. Yet his cheerfulness
was unfeigned, for he was tired of prudence and spent his whole days
hunting deer on the hills or fishing in the bay. The Uist folk knew
him, and the price upon his head; the neighboring isles were thick with
soldiery in pursuit, and gunboats were busy among the inland seas; and
yet he moved abroad as if he were some big-hearted country gentleman,
intent only on following his favourite sports in time of peace.
“You wear a charmed life, your Highness,” said Rupert, as they came
down one day from shooting deer. It was near the end of their three
weeks’ sojourn on the island, and the danger set so close about the
Prince had harassed him, as no perils of his own could do.
“I believe you, sir,” said the other, turning suddenly. “I bear a
charmed life. So does any man for whom God finds a need. We die, I
think, when our work is done, but not an hour before.” And with that he
laughed, and got out his clay pipe. “We shall sup on venison to-night,
my friend, and I am hungry. You should not tempt me with matters of
theology.”
And so it was afterwards, when they left Uist to go through constant
perils, by land and sea. The Prince brought to it all--discomfort,
pursuit outwitted by a hair’s breadth time after time--the same
unyielding outlook. Fools and cowards might fold their hands,
reconstructing yesterday and bewailing all the misadventures that might
have been avoided had they done this, done that; but the Stuart took
life up from each day’s beginning, and went forward, praying in entire
simplicity that his shoulders might be broadened to the coming burden.
When at last, near the end of June, they came near the Skye country,
a new, surprising page was turned of the story of these hunted folk.
Until now they had been among men, fighting the enemy at Culloden,
eluding him during the incessant, long retreat. But now a woman stepped
into their lives again; and, because faith and old habit had trained
them that way, they were glad that a thread of gold had come to bind
the rough wounds of life together.
Not till he died would Rupert forget those days in the Western Isles.
Their grace passed into abiding folksong before the year was out; and
he was privileged to watch, step by step, the growth of a high regard
such as the world seldom sees.
He saw Flora MacDonald’s first coming to the Prince--at Rossinish, in
Uist--saw the long, startled glance they exchanged, as if each had
been looking for the other since time’s beginning. And then he saw her
curtsey low, saw him lift her with tender haste.
“I should kneel to you instead, Miss MacDonald,” he said. “You’ve
volunteered to be my guide through dangerous seas, they tell me, and I
fear for your safety, and yet--I ever liked brave women.”
Rupert had changed his trade of messenger for that of boat-man, and
was one of the six rowers who rested on their oars in the roomy
fishing-coble that was waiting to carry the Prince to Skye. There
was a wild gale blowing, but the June night was clear with a sort of
tempered daylight, and Rupert watched these two, standing on the strip
of sandy shore, with a queer sense of intuition. The discipline of
night-riding, its loneliness and urgency, teaches a man to look on at
any happening with eyes keen for the true, sharp detail of it; and the
two figures, as he saw them now, seemed transfigured, secure for the
moment in some dream of a past life they had shared together.
There was the Prince, his head lifted buoyantly, his lips smiling as
if Culloden had never been. There was Miss MacDonald--four-and-twenty,
keen for loyalty and sacrifice--with something more than loyalty making
a happy light about her face. She had none of the fripperies that set
men’s wits astray and poison their clean hold on life; but, from her
buckled shoes to her brown, shapely head, she was trim, and debonair,
and bonnie, made to keep pace with men along the road of high endeavour.
Rupert, resting on his oar, felt a touch of loneliness and heartache.
This lass of MacDonald’s recalled the Lancashire hills to him because
she was so like Nance Demaine, for whose sake he was proving himself
along the troubled ways. And then he had no time for heartache; for the
Prince was handing Miss MacDonald into the boat, and the rowers were
bidden to make for the first unguarded landing-place in Skye which they
could find.
They had an evil passage. The wind never ceased to wail and scream
across the foamy breakers, but the storm was not dark enough to hide
them, and in the half-light their boat showed clear against the
grey-blue of the heaving seas. Gunboats were out, searching for the
fugitive, who was known to be somewhere in among the isles; and once
a hail of shot passed over them from a man-of-war that set sail in
pursuit, but could not take them because the wind was contrary.
For eight hours the rowers strove with the long passage overseas from
Uist, their arms unwearying at the oars. And the Prince would take
more than his share of the toil, telling them that he was the cause
of this night voyage and should lend a willing hand on that account.
They came to Skye at long last, and tried to put in at Waternish on the
west coast, but found a company of soldiery encamped about a roaring
fire, and had to put back again into the teeth of the wind. And, as if
wind and seas were not enough, the men on shore pursued them with a
rousing volley. One bullet struck the boat’s side, and a score others
hit the water close about them, and rebounded, and went out across the
waves with a sharp, mournful wail, shrill as the pipes when they are
sorrowful.
No one on board was hit; but the Prince, seeing Miss MacDonald
shrink, put out a hand and touched her, as a devout lover might. And
the two took hurried counsel. It seemed best to cross Snizort Loch,
and so reach Monkstadt, where a kinsman of her own would give them
shelter--unless there, too, the soldiery were quartered.
The Prince wished once again to take an oar, though his hands were raw
and bleeding; but no man would give up the rowing that, for sake of
him they carried, was pleasant to them; and so, lest he should be idle
altogether, he sang old, loyal songs to them, and jested, and made
their burden lighter--a gift of his. And then Miss MacDonald, whose
pluck was not to be denied, broke down for a little while, because she
was spent with endeavour and the wild tumult of the Stuart’s coming.
And Rupert, tugging at his oar, watched the Prince persuade her to lie
down in the bottom of the coble, saw him take off his plaid and cover
her with practical and quiet solicitude, as if he had the right to
guard her.
And through the rest of that night-crossing the Prince kept stubborn
guard about his rescuer, who was sleeping now like a child, lest any
of the rowers should touch her with his foot in moving up and down to
ease his limbs. And Rupert, though his wits were muddled with incessant
toil by land and sea, felt something stir at the soul of him, as he saw
the way of the Prince’s regard for this daughter of the MacDonalds.
Again it seemed to him that these two had known each other long ago,
before the world grew old, and tired, and prone to gossip. And again
he remembered Nance Demaine, who had touched his boyhood with the fire
that does not die.
They came to Monkstadt in safety, but learned that the enemy was in
possession of the house. And afterwards it was to and fro on foot
across the good isle of Skye, for many days, until they came to the
house of Kingsborough, where Flora’s home was with her mother and
stepfather.
It was a queer incoming, touched with laughter and the needs of every
day, as all big enterprises are until we view them in the retrospect.
There was Kingsborough--the biggest of the big MacDonalds--going in
before to prepare his wife for the intrusion. And he was manifestly
afraid, as the big, open-air men are when they are dwarfed by
house-walls and the indoor cleanliness.
Kingsborough, after bowing the Prince into the square, tidy hall, asked
leave to go up and tell his wife the news. And presently, from above
stairs--while Flora and the Stuart waited in the hall--the laird’s wife
broke into practical and shrill complaint.
“There’s the danger, Kingsborough; and, fore-bye, there’s so little in
the house. Collops, and eggs, and a dish of oatmeal--how should I face
the Prince, God bless him, with eggs and collops?”
The Prince laughed suddenly. And Miss MacDonald, standing apart with
the unrest and trouble of her deepening regard for the Stuart she had
rescued, glanced across at him, wondering that he could be gay; and
then she laughed with him, for the tart good-humour of her mother’s
voice was practical, and far removed from the glamour the two fugitives
had shared.
“You may face me, Mrs. MacDonald,” he said, going to the stairfoot.
“Collops and eggs are dainties to me these days; and, indeed, I am very
hungry.”
So there was a hurried toilet made, and the mistress of the house came
down, half of her the laird’s wife, instinct with the dignity that
knows its station, the other half a picture of curiosity, surprise,
bewildered curtseys, because the Stuart claimed her hospitality.
They supped that night as if they dined in state. To any meal, to any
company, the Prince brought that grace which is not lightly won--the
grace to touch common things with poetry, and to make a dish of collops
as proud as if it were a boar’s head brought in to table by stately
lackeys.
Rupert, supping with them, noted less the Prince’s great air of
ease--he was accustomed to it long ago--than the punctilious and minute
regard he showed to Miss MacDonald. Whenever she moved to leave the
room--intent on seeing to the dishes in the kitchen--he rose and bowed
her out. When she returned, he rose, and would not be seated till she
had taken her place again.
“You’ll turn poor Flora’s head, your Highness,” said Mrs. MacDonald
once, after Flora had gone out, some shrewd maternal instinct warring
with her loyalty.
“The head that guided me from Uist to Skye, and to your hospitality,
would not be lightly turned. I _choose_ to honour your daughter, Mrs.
MacDonald, by your leave.”
“But, your Highness, she’s only a daft slip of a girl. I weaned and
reared her, and should know.”
“You did not cross with us from Uist. And afterwards there were the
days and nights in Skye, the rains, and the patient watching; madam, as
God sees us, Miss Flora carries the bravest soul in Scotland. I cannot
do her too much honour.”
Kingsborough, big and simple-hearted--his wife, thrifty and not prone
to sentiment--looked at their guest with frank astonishment. He had
been so gay, so debonair, until a chance word had touched the depths
in him. How could they understand him? They had not been through the
glamour and wild seas, as he had been since Miss MacDonald came to
serve him. They did not know the clean, quick love that had lain here
in wait for him among the Western Isles.
Flora came in again, carrying a dish of hot scones. She was aware of
some new gravity that had settled on the company, and her glance sought
the Prince’s with instinctive question.
“Yes,” he said, “I was praising Miss MacDonald in her absence. You must
forgive me.”
Late that night, when he and Rupert were alone with their host, the
Prince fell into a mood of reckless gaiety. For a while his journeyings
were ended. He had supped royally; he was to enjoy the luxury of a
mattress and clean sheets, after many nights spent in the heather or in
wave-swept boats; and the sheer physical comfort of it was strangely
pleasant.
He was a good companion, with a story here, a jest there, that set big
Kingsborough laughing till he feared to wake the goodwife up above.
He taught the laird the true way of mixing whisky-punch. He would not
be cajoled to bed, because the respite of this sitting beside a warm
hearth, with friends beside him and Miss MacDonald somewhere in the
house, was more than food and drink to him.
“We must make an early start to-morrow,” said Kingsborough, when at
last his guest rose. “It is imperative, your Highness.”
“No, friend,” said the other, with pleasant unconcern. “To-night I
sleep--I tell you, I must sleep. The most willing horse, Mr. MacDonald,
has need of the stable in between-whiles.”
He knew himself and his needs; and, with a purpose as settled as his
zeal at other times to undergo wakefulness and unremitting hardship, he
slept that night so deep that only armed intrusion would have roused
him.
Kingsborough and Rupert, pacing up and down below stairs the next
morning, were consumed with dread for the Stuart’s safety. The laird’s
wife feared every moment that the enemy would come battering at her
door. Only Miss MacDonald was cool and practical.
“His Highness has the gift of knowing when to keep awake,” she said,
a little undernote of pride and tenderness in her voice--“the gift of
knowing when to sleep.”
And her faith was justified. The Prince came down two hours beyond
the time that Kingsborough had planned--came down with a light step,
and a face from which sleep had wiped away a year of sorrow. He bade
farewell to the laird’s wife, who was crying like a child to see him so
pleasantly in love with danger, and was turning from the door, when he
began to bleed at the nose. Kingsborough’s wife handed him a kerchief,
bewailing the ill omen.
“No,” said the Prince, with unconquerable twisting of crooked issues to
a clean, straight shape. “The omen’s good. Blood has been shed for me,
and I’m paying a few of my debts, Mrs. MacDonald. I should not like it
to be said that I left your Highland country a defaulter.”
The three of them set out--the Prince, and Flora, and Rupert--and
Kingsborough turned suddenly from watching the Stuart out of sight. “By
God, wife,” he said suddenly, “we’ve given houseroom to a man!”
“He’s for death, Hugh,” the goodwife answered, her thrifty mind
returning to calculation of the odds against the fugitive.
Kingsborough took a wide look at the hills, where sun and mist and
shadows chased each other across the striding rises. “Death?” he
snapped. “It comes soon or late--but the soul of a man outrides it.”
It was on their way to Portree that the three fugitives learned how
clearly Miss MacDonald’s faith in her Prince had been justified. They
met a shepherd--Donald MacDonald by name--who told them that, two
hours before, “the foreigners” had been up and down between Portree
and Kingsborough, searching for the Prince. They had left the island a
half-hour ago, he added, following some new rumour that his Highness
was still hiding in South Uist.
“If I’d not slept so late, we should all three of us have been taken,
Miss MacDonald,” said the Prince, as they went forward.
“I trusted you,” she answered. And the quietness of her voice rang like
a bugle-call.
And Rupert, with that fine sixth sense that a man learns from hazard
and night-riding, knew that these two were talking with the freemasonry
of souls that have learned kinship and proved it through long,
disastrous roads.
They went to Portree, and found an eight-oared boat there, with seven
rowers in it. Rupert went on board, took his place at the eighth oar.
And again, as far away in Uist--and years ago, it seemed--he watched
the Prince and Miss MacDonald foregathered on the shore. In Uist they
had met, these two, under a driving wind that blew across the tempered
radiance of the June night hours. Here they were standing in hot
daylight, with never a breeze to ruffle the happy face of land and sea.
And yet they had been glad in Uist, with the storm about them; and here
in Skye they stood, and looked at one another, and were empty of all
hope.
They had spent few days together, as time is reckoned, the Prince and
Miss MacDonald of the isles. But the days they shared had been packed
full of hardship, danger of pursuing soldiery, peril of their warm,
human liking for each other--the human liking that gains depth and
strength from trouble. The Prince had gone through a Scotland set thick
with women who asked a love-lock, a glance, and all that follows. He
had kept troth instead with the stubborn march of men who followed the
open road with him. Women came before and after strife--that had been
his gospel, until he met Miss MacDonald, good to look at, and brave to
rescue him.
And now they stood together on the shore of Portree Bay. They were
Prince and loyal subject, and yet they were children crying in the
dark, needing each other, heart-sick at parting, ready, if their faith
had been a little weaker, to catch at the coward’s proverb that the
world is well lost for a love forbidden.
To these two, parting on the edge of Portree Bay, there came a sudden
intuition of the soul. They saw--almost as if it stood between
them--a sword, keen-edged, and clean, and silvery--the sword that
had guarded them safely through worse dangers than gunboats and the
stormy seas. They saw the days behind--the few days granted them for
comradeship--the years stretching out and out ahead, empty and steep
and wind-swept as the lone hill-tracks of Skye.
The rowers waited, impatient to be off, because each moment lost was
packed with danger. But these two would never again fear any sort of
hazard; they had gained too much, were losing too much.
Their glances met. One was taking the high road trod by the
bleeding feet of royalty; the other was taking the low road, that
led to the house of Kingsborough, its maddening, quiet routine of
housewifery--mending of the laird’s stockings, seeing that Mrs.
MacDonald’s fowls were tended, going, day by day, and year by year,
through the sick, meaningless routine of housework.
And one knew that, wherever his feet were planted, his heart would
return constantly to the misty isle that had taught him the strong love
and the lasting. And the other knew that she would never cease to look
out from Kingsborough’s windows, when leisure served, and trick herself
into the belief that her man was returning--crowned or uncrowned, she
cared not which--was returning, with the wind in his feet and the glad
look in his face, to tell her all the things unspoken during these last
days of trial.
The sun beat hot on the rowers’ backs, and this parting seemed long to
them. To Miss MacDonald and the Prince it seemed brief, because the
coming separation showed endless as eternity.
And then at last the Prince stooped to her hand, and kissed it. “Your
servant, Miss MacDonald,” he said--“your servant till I die, God knows.”
Rupert watched it all with eyes trained to understanding. And, when
the fugitives were aboard and they were straining at their oars, he
was sure that the Prince would give one long, backward glance at Miss
MacDonald. But the Stuart was older to life’s teaching, and would not
look behind when he had chosen the plain road ahead. His eyes were set
forward--forward, over the dappled, summer seas, to the days of hiding
and unrest waiting for him. And through his bitterness and lonely need
for Miss MacDonald he found a keen, high courage, as the man’s way is.
And Flora MacDonald, as the woman’s way is, watched the boat grow less
and less until it was a dark speck dancing on a sea of violet, and
green, and amethyst, and fought for the resignation that brings peace,
but never the trumpet-note of gladness that had kept her company on the
dangerous seas.