The castle, defiant, untakable save by long siege and famine, held for
King George by a garrison of a few hundreds, spread itself like a rock
lion in a high-lifted rock lair. Bands of Highlanders watched its
gates and accesses, guarding against Hanoverian sallies. From the
castle down stretched Edinburgh, heaped upon its long, spinelike hill,
to the palace of Holyrood, and all its tall houses, tall and dark, and
all its wynds and closes, and all its strident voices, and all its
moving folk, seemed to have in mind that palace and the banner before
it. The note of the having rang jubilation in all its degrees, or with
a lower and a muffled sound distaste and fear, or it aimed at a middle
strain neither high nor low, a golden mean to be kept until there
might be seen what motif, after all, was going to prevail! It would
never do, thought some, to be at this juncture too clamorous either
way. But to the unpondering ear the jubilation carried it, as to the
eye tartans and white cockades made color, made high light, splashed
and starred and redeemed the gray town. There was one thing that could
not but appeal. A Scots royal line had come into its home nest at
Holyrood. Not for many and many and many a year had such a thing as
that happened! If matters went in a certain way Edinburgh might
regain ancient pomp and circumstance. That was a consideration that
every hour arranged a new plea in the citizen heart.
Excitement, restless movement, tendency to come together in a crowd,
were general, as were ejaculation, nervous laughter, declamation. The
roll of drum, call of trumpet, skirl of pipes, did not lack. Charles
Edward's army encamped itself at Duddingston a little to the east of
the city. But its units came in numbers into the town. The warlike hue
diffused itself. Horsemen were frequent, and a continual entering of
new adherents, men in small or large clusters, marching in from the
country, asking the way to the Prince. For all the buzzing and
thronging, great order prevailed. Women sat or stood at windows, or
passed in and out of dark wynds, or, escorted, picked their way at
street crossings. Now and then went by a sedan-chair. Many women
showed in their faces a truly religious fervor, a passionate Jacobite
loyalty, lighting like a flame. Many sewed white cockades. All
Scotland, all England, would surely presently want these! Men of all
ranks, committed to the great venture, moved with a determined gaiety
and _élan_. "This is the stage, we are the actors; the piece is a
great piece, the world looks on!" The town of Edinburgh did present a
grandiose setting. Suspense, the die yet covered, the greatness of the
risk, gave, too, its glamour of height and stateliness. All these men
might see, in some bad moment at night, not only possible battle
death--that was in the counting--but, should the great enterprise
fail, scaffolds and hangmen. Many who went up and down were merely
thoughtless, ignorant, reckless, or held in a vanity of good fortune,
yet to the eye of history all might come into the sweep of great
drama. Place and time rang and were tense. Flare and sonorousness and
a deep vibration of the old massive passions, and through all the
outward air a September sea mist creeping.
Ian Rullock, walking down the High Street, approaching St. Giles,
heard his name spoken from a little knot of well-dressed citizens. As
he turned his head a gentleman detached himself from the company. It
proved to be Mr. Wotherspoon the advocate, old acquaintance and
adviser of Archibald Touris, of Black Hill.
"Captain Rullock--"
"Mr. Wotherspoon, I am glad to see you!"
Mr. Wotherspoon, old moderate Whig, and the Jacobite officer walked
together down the clanging way. The mist was making pallid garlands
for the tall houses, a trumpet rang at the foot of the street,
Macdonald of Glengarry and fifty clansmen, bright tartan and screaming
pipes, poured by.
"Auld Reekie sees again a stirring time!" said the lawyer.
"I am glad to have met you, sir," said Rullock. "I fancy that you can
tell me home news. I have heard none for a long time."
"You have been, doubtless," said Mr. Wotherspoon, "too engaged with
great, new-time things to be fashed with small, old-time ones."
"One of our new-time aims," said Ian, "is to give fresh room to an
old-time thing. But we won't let little bolts fly! I am anxious for
knowledge."
Mr. Wotherspoon seemed to ponder it. "I live just here. Perhaps you
will come up to my rooms, out of this Mars' racket?"
"In an hour's time I must wait on Lord George Murray. But I have till
then."
They entered a close, and climbed the stair of a tall, tall house,
dusky and old. Here, half-way up, was the lawyer's lair. He unlocked a
door and the two came, through a small vestibule, into a good-sized,
comfortable, well-furnished room. Rullock glanced at the walls.
"I was here once or twice, years ago. I remember your books. What a
number you have!"
"I recall," said Mr. Wotherspoon, "a visit that you paid me with the
now laird of Glenfernie."
The window to which they moved allowed a glimpse of the colorful
street. Mr. Wotherspoon closed it against the invading noise and the
touch of chill in the misty air. He then pushed two chairs to the
table and took from a cupboard a bottle and glasses.
"My man is gadding, with eyes like saucers--like the rest of us, like
the rest of us, Captain Rullock!" They sat down. "My profession," said
the lawyer, "can be made to be narrow and narrowing. On the other
hand, if a man has an aptitude for life, there is much about life to
be learned with a lawyer's spy-glass! A lawyer sees a variety of
happenings in a mixed world. He quite especially learns how seldom
black and white are found in anything like a pure condition. A
thousand thousand blends. Be wise and tolerant--or to be wise be
tolerant!" He pushed the bottle.
Ian smiled. "I take that, sir, to mean that you find _God save King
James!_ not wholly harsh and unmusical--"
"Perhaps not wholly so," said the lawyer. "I am Whig and Presbyterian
and I prefer _God save King George!_ But I do not look for the world
to end, whether for King George or King James. I did not have in mind
just this public occasion."
His tone was dry. Ian kept his gold-brown eyes upon him. "Tell me what
you have heard from Black Hill."
"I was there late in May. Mr. Touris learned at that time that you had
quitted France."
"May I ask how he learned it?"
"The laird of Glenfernie, who had been in the Low Countries, told him.
Apparently Glenfernie had acquaintances, agents, who traced it out for
him that you had sailed from Dunkirk for Beauly Firth, under the name
of Robert Bonshaw."
"_So he was there, pacing the beach_," thought Ian. He lifted his
glass and drank Mr. Wotherspoon's very good wine. That gentleman went
on.
"It was surmised at Black Hill that you were helping on the event--the
great event, perhaps--that has occurred. Indeed, in July, Mr. Touris,
writing to me, mentioned that you had been seen beyond Inverness. But
the Highlands are deep and you traveled rapidly. Of course, when it
was known that the Prince had landed, your acquaintance assumed your
joining him and becoming, as you have become, an officer in his army."
He made a little bow.
Ian inclined his head in return. "All at Black Hill are well, I hope?
My aunt--"
"Mrs. Alison is a saint. All earthly grief, I imagine, only quickens
her homeward step."
"What grief has she had, sir, beyond--"
"Beyond?"
"I know that my aunt will grieve for the break that has come between
my uncle and myself. I have, too," said Ian, with deliberation, "been
quarreled with by an old friend. That also may distress her."
The lawyer appeared to listen to sounds from the street. Rising, he
moved to the window, then returned. "Bonnet lairds coming into town!
You are referring now to Glenfernie?"
"Then he has made it common property that he chose to quarrel with
me?"
"Oh, chose to--" said Mr. Wotherspoon, reflectively.
There was a silence. Ian set down his wine-glass, made a movement of
drawing together, of determination.
"I am sure that there is something of which I have not full
understanding. You will much oblige me by attention to what I now say,
Mr. Wotherspoon. It is possible that I may ask you to see that its
substance reaches Black Hill." He leaned back in his chair and with
his gold-brown eyes met the lawyer's keen blue ones. "Nothing now can
be injured by telling you that for a year I have acted under
responsibility of having in keeping greater fortunes than my own. That
kind of thing, none can know better than you, binds a man out of his
own path and his own choices into the path and choices of others.
Secrecy was demanded of me. I ceased to write home, and presently I
removed from old lodgings and purposely blurred indications of where I
was or might be found. In this way--the warring, troubled time
aiding--it occurred that there practically ceased all communication
between me and those of my blood and friendship whose political
thinking differs from mine.... I begin to see that I know little
indeed of what may or may not have occurred in that countryside. Early
in April, however, there came to my hand in Paris two letters--one
from my uncle, written before Christmas, one from Alexander Jardine,
written a month later. My uncle's contained the information that,
lacking my immediate return to this island and the political faith of
his side of the house, I was no longer his nephew and heir. The laird
of Glenfernie, upon an old quarrel into which I need not enter, chose
to send me a challenge simply. _Meet him, on such a sands in
Holland_.... Well, great affairs have right of way over small ones!
Under the circumstances, he might as well have appointed a plain in
the moon! The duel waits.... I tell you what I know of home affairs. I
shall be obliged for any information you may have that I have not."
Mr. Wotherspoon's sharp blue eyes seemed to consider it. He drummed on
the table. "I am a much older man than you, Captain Rullock, and an
old adviser of your family. Perhaps I may speak without offense? That
subject of quarrel, now, between you and the laird of Glenfernie--"
The other made a movement, impatient and imperious. "It is not
likely, sir, that he divulged that!"
"He? No! But fate--fortune--the unrolling course of things--plain
Providence--whatever you choose to call it--seems at times quite below
or above that reticence which we others so naturally prize and
exhibit!"
"You'll oblige me, sir, by not speaking in riddles."
The irony dropped from Mr. Wotherspoon's tone. He faced the business
squarely. "Do you mean to say that you do not know of the suicide of
Elspeth Barrow?"
The chair opposite made a grating sound, pushed violently back upon
the bare, polished floor. Down the street, through the window, came
the sound of Cluny Macpherson's pipers, playing down from the
Lawnmarket. Rullock seemed to have thrust his chair back into the
shadow. Out of it came presently his voice, low and hoarse:
"No."
"They found her on Christmas Day--drowned in the Kelpie's Pool.
Self-murder--murder also of a child that would have been."
Again silence. The lawyer found that he must go through with it,
having come so far. "It seems that there is a cripple fellow of the
neighborhood who had stumbled, unseen, upon your trysts. He told--spoke
it all out to the crowd gathered. There was a letter, too, upon her
which gave a clue. But she never named you and evidently meant not to
name you.... Poor child! She may have thought herself strong, and then
things have come over her wave on wave. Her grandfather--that dark
upbringing on tenets harsh and wrathful--certainty of disgrace.
Pitiful!"
There came a sound from the chair pushed back from the light. Mr.
Wotherspoon measured the table with his fingers.
"It seems that the countryside was searching for her. It was the laird
of Glenfernie who, alone and coming upon some trace, entered the
Kelpie's Pool and found her there. They say that he carried her, dead,
in his arms through the glen to White Farm."
Some proclamation or other was being made at the Cross of Edinburgh. A
trumpet blew and the street was filled with footsteps.
"The laird of Glenfernie," said the lawyer, "has joined, I hear, Sir
John Cope at Dunbar. It is not impossible that you may have speech
together from opposing battle-lines." He poured wine. "My bag of news
is empty, Captain Rullock."
Ian rose from his seat. His face was gray and twisted, his voice, when
he spoke, hollow, low, and dry. "I must go now to Lord George
Murray.... It was all news, Mr. Wotherspoon. I--What are words,
anyhow? Give you good day, sir!"
Mr. Wotherspoon, standing in his door, watched him down the stair and
forth from the house. "He goes brawly! How much is night, and how much
streak of dawn?"
* * * * *
Sir John Cope, King George's general in Scotland, had but a small
army. It was necessary in the highest degree that Prince Charles
Edward should meet and defeat this force before it was enlarged,
before from England came more and more regular troops.... A battle
won meant prestige gained, the coming over of doubting thousands, an
echo into England that would bring the definite accession of great
Tory names. Cope and his twenty-five hundred men, regulars and
volunteers, approaching Edinburgh from the east, took position near
the village of Prestonpans. On the morning of the 20th of September
out moved to meet him the Prince and Lord George Murray, behind them
less than two thousand men.
By afternoon the two forces confronted each the other; but Cope had
chosen well, the right position. The sea guarded one flank, a deep and
wide field ditch full of water the other. In his rear were stone
walls, and before him a wide marsh. The Jacobite strength halted,
reconnoitered, must perforce at last come to a standstill before
Cope's natural fortress. There was little artillery, no great number
of horse. Even the bravest of the brave, Highland or Lowland, might
draw back from the thought of trying to cross that marsh, of meeting
the moat-like ditch under Cope's musket-fire. Sunset came amid
perturbation, a sense of check, impending disaster.
Ian Rullock, acting for the moment as aide-de-camp, had spent the day
on horseback. Released in the late afternoon, lodged in a hut at the
edge of the small camp, he used the moment's leisure to climb a small
hill and at its height to throw himself down beside a broken cairn. He
shut his eyes, but after a few moments opened them and gazed upon the
camp of Cope, covering also but a little space, so small were the
armies. His lips parted.
"Well, Old Steadfast, and what if you are there, waiting?..."
The sun sank. A faint red light diffused itself, then faded into brown
dusk. He rose and went down into the camp. In the brows of many there
might be read depression, uncertainty. But in open places fires had
been built, and about several of these Highlanders were dancing to the
screaming of their pipes. Rullock bent his steps to headquarters. An
officer whom he knew, coming forth, drew him aside in excitement.
"We've got it--we've got it, Rullock!"
"What? The plan?"
"The way through! Here has come to the Prince the man who owns the
marsh! He knows the firm ground. Cope does not know that it is there!
Cope thinks that it is all slough! This man swears that he can and
will take us across, one treading behind another. It's settled. When
sleep seems to wrap us, then we'll move!"
That was what was done, and done so perfectly, late at night, Sir John
Cope sleeping, thinking himself safe as in a castle. File after file
wound noiselessly, by the one way through the marsh, and upon the
farther side, so near to Cope, formed in the darkness into
battle-lines.... Ian Rullock, passing through the marsh, saw in
imagination Alexander lying with eyes closed.
The small force, the Stewart hope, prepared for onslaught. The dawn
was coming, there was a smell of it in the air, far away a cock
crowed. There stood, in the universal dimness, a first and strongest
line, a second and weaker, badly armed line. The mass of this army
were Highlanders, alert, strong, accustomed to dawn movements,
dreamlike in the heather, along the glen-sides, in the crooked pass.
They knew the tactics of surprise. They had claymores and targes, and
the most muskets. But the second line had inadequate provision of
weapons. Many here bore scythes fastened to staves. As they carried
these over their shoulders Ian, looking back, saw them against the
palest light like Death in replica.
The two lines hung motionless, on stout ground, now within the defense
to which Cope had trusted, very close to the latter's sleeping camp.
There were sentries, but the night was dark, the marsh believed to be
unpassable, the crossing carried out with stealthy skill. But now the
night was going.
In the most uncertain, the faintest light, there seemed to Cope's
watchers, looking that way, a line of bushes not noted the day before.
Officers were awakened. A movement ran through the camp like the
shiver of water under dawn wind. The light thickened. A trumpet rang
with a startled, emphatic note. Drums rolled. _To arms! To arms!_ King
George's army started up in the dawning. Infantry hastened into ranks,
cavalrymen ran to their horses. The line of bushes moved, began to
come forward with great rapidity.
The Highlanders flung themselves upon Cope's just-forming cavalry.
With their claymores they slashed at the faces of horses. The hurt
beasts wheeled, broke for the rear. Their fellows were wounded. Amid a
whirlwind of blows, screams, shouts, with a suddenness that appalled,
disorder became general. The Highlanders seemed to fight with a
demoniac strength and ferocity and after methods of their own. They
used their claymores, their dirks, their scythes fastened upon poles,
against the horses, then, springing up, put long arms about the
horsemen and, regardless of sword or pistol, dragged them down. They
shouted their Gaelic slogans; their costume, themselves, seemed out of
a fiercer, earlier world. A strangeness overclouded the senses; mist
wreaths were everywhere, and an uncertainty as to the numbers of
demons.... The cavalry broke. Officers tried to save the situation, to
rally the units, to save all from being borne back. But there was no
helping. Befell a panic flight, and at its heels the Highland rush
streamed into and had its way with Cope's infantry. The battle was won
with a swift and horrible completeness and became a massacre. Not much
quarter was given; much that was horrible was done and seen.
Immoderate victory sat and sang to the white-cockaded army.
Out of the mist-bank before Captain Ian Rullock grew a great horse
with a man upon it of great stature and frame. It came to the Jacobite
like a vision, with a startling and intense reality. He was standing
with his sword drawn; there was a drift of mist, and then there was
the horse and rider--there was Alexander.
He looked down at Ian, and his face was not pale but set. He made a
gesture that seemed full of satisfaction, and would have dismounted
and drawn his sword. But there came a dash of maddened horses and
their riders and a leaping stream of tartaned men. These drove like a
wedge between; his horse wheeled, would leave no more its fellows; the
tide of brute and man bore him away with it. Ian watched all go
fighting by, a moving frieze, out of the mist into the mist.