thanks to Almighty God and cleansin' the lousiness of its habitation.
What pestilence, says you? A pestilence, verily, good sir, for since
cockcrow the rebel army has been meltin' away northwards like the hosts
o' Sennacherib before the blast of the Lord. Horse and foot and
coaches, and the spawn o' Rome himself in the midst o' them. Not but
what he be a personable young man, with his white face and pretty white
wig, and his sad smile, and where he was the rebels marched like an
army. But there was acres of breechless rabbledom at his heels that
thieved like pyots. Be they all passed, think ye?"
The chill at Alastair's heart turned to ice.
"But the Prince is in Derby," he stammered. "He marches south."
"Not so, young sir," said the man. "I dunno the why of it, but since
cockcrow he and his rascality has been fleein' north. Old England's too
warm for the vermin and they're hastin' back to their bogs."
The head was suddenly withdrawn, since the man saw something which was
still hid from the others. There was a sound of feet in the road, the
soft tread which deer make when they are changing their pasture. From
his place in the alley Alastair saw figures come into sight, a string
of outlandish figures that without pause or word poured down the
street. There were perhaps a score of them--barefoot Highlanders, their
ragged kilts buckled high on their bodies, their legs blue with cold,
their shirts unspeakably foul and tattered, their long hair matted into
elf-locks. Each man carried plunder, one a kitchen clock slung on his
back by a rope, another a brace of squalling hens, another some
goodman's wraprascal. Their furtive eyes raked the houses, but they did
not pause in the long loping trot with which of a moonlight night they
had often slunk through the Lochaber passes. They wore the Macdonald
tartan, and the familiar sight seemed to strip from Alastair's eyes the
last film of illusion.
So that was the end of the long song. Gone the velvet and steel of a
great crusade, the honourable hopes, the chivalry and the high
adventure, and what was left was this furtive banditti slinking through
the mud like the riff-raff of a fair. . . . It was too hideous to
envisage, and the young man's mind was mercifully dulled after the
first shattering certainty. Mechanically the three turned into the
street.
The courage of the inhabitants was reviving. One or two men had shown
themselves, and one fellow with a flageolet was starting a tune.
Another took it up, and began to sing.
"O Brother Sawney, hear you the news?"
and presently several joined in the chorus of
"Twang 'em, we'll bang 'em, and
Hang 'em up all."
"Follow me," said Midwinter, and they followed him beyond the houses,
and presently turned off into a path that ran among woods into the
dale. In Alastair's ears the accursed tune rang like the voice of
thousands, till it seemed that all England behind him was singing it, a
scornful valedictory to folly.
He dismounted in a dream and found himself set by the hearth in the
well-scrubbed kitchen of a woodland inn. Midwinter disappeared and
returned with three tankards of home-brewed, which he distributed among
them. No one spoke a word, Johnson sprawling on a chair with his chin
on his breast and his eyes half-closed, while his left hand beat an
aimless tattoo, Midwinter back in the shadows, and Alastair in the eye
of the fire, unseeing and absorbed. The palsy was passing from the
young man's mind, and he was enduring the bitterness of returning
thought, like the pain of the blood flowing back to a frozen limb. No
agony ever endured before in his life, not even the passion of disquiet
when he had been prisoner in the hut and had overheard Sir John
Norreys's talk, had so torn at the roots of his being.
For it was clear that on him and on him alone had the Cause
shipwrecked. At some hour yesterday the fainthearts in the Council had
won, and the tragic decision had been taken, the Prince protesting--he
could see the bleached despair in his face and hear the hopeless
pleading in his voice. He imagined Lochiel and others of the stalwarts
pleading for a day's delay, delay which might bring the lost messenger,
himself, with the proofs that would convince the doubters. All was over
now, for a rebellion on the defensive was a rebellion lost. With London
at their mercy, with Cumberland and the Whig Dukes virtually in flight,
and a dumb England careless which master was hers, they had turned
their back on victory and gone northward to chaos and defeat. And all
because of their doubt of support, which was even then waiting in the
West for their summons. Mr Nicholas Kyd had conquered in his downfall,
and in his exile would chuckle over the discomfiture of his judges.
But it had been his own doing--his and none other's. Providence had
provided an eleventh-hour chance, which he had refused. Had he ridden
straight from Brightwell, he could have been with the Prince in the
small hours of the morning, time enough to rescind the crazy decision
and set the army on the road for Loughborough and St James's. But he
had put his duty behind him for a whim. Not a whim of pleasure--for he
had sacrificed his dearest hopes--but of another and a lesser duty. A
perverse duty, it seemed to him now, the service of a woman rather than
of his King. Great God, what a tangle was life! He felt no bitterness
against any mortal soul, not even against the oafs who were now singing
"George is magnanimous." He and he alone must bear the blame, since in
a high mission he had let his purpose be divided, and in a crisis had
lacked that singleness of aim which is the shining virtue of the
soldier. . . . His imagination, heated to fever point, made a
panorama of tragic scenes. He saw the Prince's young face thin and
haggard and drawn, looking with hopeless eyes into the northern mists,
a Pretender now for evermore, when he might have been a King. He saw
his comrades, condemned to lost battles with death or exile at the end
of them. He saw his clan, which might have become great again, reduced
to famished vagrants, like the rabble of Macdonalds seen an hour ago
scurrying at the tail of the army. . . . That knot of caterans was
the true comment on the tragedy. Plunderers of old wives' plenishing
when they should have been a King's bodyguard in the proud courts of
palaces!
The picture maddened him with its bitter futility. He dropped his head
on his breast and cried like a heartbroken child. "Ah, my grief, my
grief! I have betrayed my Prince and undone my people. There is no
comfort for me any more in the world." At the cry Johnson lifted his
head, and stared with eyes not less tragic than his own.
Midwinter had carried that day at his saddle-bow an oddly shaped case
which never left him. Back in the shadow he had opened it and taken out
his violin, and now drew from it the thin fine notes which were the
prelude to his playing. Alastair did not notice the music for a little,
but gradually familiar chords struck in on his absorption and awoke
their own memories. It was the air of "Diana," which was twined with
every crisis of the past weeks. The delicate melody filled the place
like a vapour, and to the young man brought not peace, but a different
passion.
A passion of tenderness was in it, a wayward wounded beauty. Claudia's
face again filled his vision, the one face that in all his life had
brought love into his bustling soldierly moods and moved his heart to
impulses which aforetime he would have thought incredible. Love had
come to him and he had passed it by, but not without making sacrifice,
for to the goddess he had offered his most cherished loyalties. Now it
was all behind him--but by God, he did not, he would not regret it. He
had taken the only way, and if it had pleased Fate to sport cruelly
with him, that was no fault of his. He had sacrificed one loyalty to a
more urgent, and with the thought bitterness went out of his soul.
Would Lochiel, would the Prince blame him? Assuredly no. Tragedy had
ensued, but the endeavour had been honest. He saw the ironic pattern of
life spread out beneath him, as a man views a campaign from a mountain,
and he came near to laughter--laughter with an undertone of tears.
Midwinter changed the tune, and the air was now that which he had
played that night on Otmoor in the camp of the moor-men.
"Three naked men we be,
Stark aneath the blackthorn tree."
He laid down his violin. "I bade you call me to your aid, Alastair
Maclean, if all else failed you and your pride miscarried. Maybe that
moment has come. We in this place are three naked men."
"I am bare to the bone," said Alastair, "I have given up my lady, and I
have failed in duty to my Prince. I have no rag of pride left on me,
nor ambition, nor hope."
Johnson spoke. "I am naked enough, but I had little to lose. I am a
scholar and a Christian and, I trust, a gentleman, but I am bitter
poor, and ill-favoured, and sore harassed by bodily affliction. Naked,
ay, naked as when I came from the womb."
Midwinter moved into the firelight, with a crooked smile on his broad
face. "We be three men in like case," he said. "Nakedness has its
merits and its faults. A naked man travels fast and light, for he has
nothing that he can lose, and his mind is free from cares, so that it
is better swept and garnished for the reception of wisdom. But if he be
naked he is also defenceless, and the shod feet of the world can hurt
him. You have been sore trampled on, sirs. One has lost a lady whom he
loved as a father, and the other a mistress and a Cause. Naturally your
hearts are sore. Will you that I help in the healing of them? Will you
join me in Old England, which is the refuge of battered men?"
Alastair looked up and gently shook his head. "For me," he said, "I go
up to Ramoth-Gilead, like the King of Israel I heard the parson speak
of this morning. It is fated that I go there and it is fated that I
fail. Having done so much to wreck the Cause, the least I can do is to
stand by it to the end. I am convinced that the end is not far off, and
if it be also the end of my days I am content."
"And I," said Johnson, "have been minded since this morning to get me a
sword and fight in His Highness's army."
Alastair looked at the speaker with eyes half affectionate, half amused.
"Nay, that I do not permit. In Scotland we strive on our own ground and
in our own quarrel, and I would involve no Englishman in what is
condemned to defeat. You have not our sentiments, sir, and you shall
not share our disasters. But I shall welcome your company to within
sight of Ramoth-Gilead."
"I offer the hospitality of Old England," said Midwinter.
There was no answer and he went on--
"It is balm for the wearied, sirs, and a wondrous opiate for the
unquiet. If you have lost all baggage, you retire to a world where
baggage is unknown. If you seek wisdom, you will find it, and you will
forget alike the lust of life and the dread of death."
"Can you teach me to forget the fear of death?" Johnson asked sharply.
"Hark you, sir, I am a man of stout composition, for there is something
gusty and gross in my humour which makes me careless of common fear. I
will face an angry man, or mob, or beast with equanimity, even with
joy. But the unknown terrors of death fill me, when I reflect on them,
with the most painful forebodings. I conjecture, and my imagination
wanders in labyrinths of dread. I most devoutly believe in the living
God, and I stumblingly attempt to serve Him, but 'tis an awful thing to
fall into His hand."
"In Old England," said Midwinter, "they look on death as not less
natural and kindly than the shut of evening. They lay down their heads
on the breast of earth as a flower dies in the field."
Johnson was looking with abstracted eyes to the misty woods beyond a
lozenged window, and he replied like a man thinking his own thoughts
aloud.
"The daedal earth!" he muttered. "Poets, many poets, have sung of it,
and I have had glimpses of it. . . . A sweet and strange thing when
a man quits the servitude of society and goes to nurse with Gaea. I
remember . . ."
Then a new reflection seemed to change his mood and bring him to his
feet with his hands clenched.
"Tut, sir," he cried, "these are but brutish consolations. I can find
that philosophy in pagan writers, and it has small comfort for a
Christian. I thank you, but I have no part in your world of woods and
mountains. I am better fitted for a civil life, and must needs return
to London and bear the burden of it in a garret. But I am not yet
persuaded as to that matter of taking arms. I have a notion that I am a
good man of my hands."
Midwinter's eyes were on Alastair, who smiled and shook his head.
"You offer me Old England, but I am of another race and land. I must
follow the road of my fathers."
"That is your answer?"
"Nay, it is not all my answer. Could you understand the Gaelic, or had
I my fingers now on the chanter-reed, I could give it more fully. You
in England must keep strictly to the high road, or flee to the
woods--one or the other, for there is no third way. We of the Highlands
carry the woods with us to the high roads of life. We are natives of
both worlds, wherefore we need renounce neither. But my feet must tread
the high road till my strength fails."
"It was the answer I looked for," said Midwinter, and he rose and slung
his violin on his arm. "Now we part, gentlemen, and it is not likely
that we shall meet again. But nevertheless you are sealed of our
brotherhood, for you are of the Naked Men, since the film has gone from
your sight and you have both looked into your own hearts. You can never
again fear mortal face or the tricks of fortune, for you are men
indeed, and can confront your Maker with honest eyes. Farewell,
brother." He embraced Alastair and kissed him on the cheek, and held
for a second Johnson's great hand in his greater. Then he left the
room, and a minute later a horse's hooves drummed on the stones of the
little yard.
For a little the two left behind sat in silence. Then Johnson spoke:
"My dear young lady should by this time be across Trent. I take it that
she is safe from all perils of the road in Her Grace's carriage." Then
he took up a poker and stirred the logs. "Clear eyes are for men an
honourable possession, but they do not make for happiness. I pray God
that those of my darling child may to the end of a long life be happily
blinded."
_XIX_ _Ramoth-Gilead_
Three hours' hard riding should have brought them to the tail of the
Highland army, but the horses were still in their stalls when the night
fell. For, as he sat by the fire with Johnson, the latches of
Alastair's strength were loosened and it fell from him. The clout on
the head, the imperfect convalescence, the seasons of mental conflict
and the many hours in the saddle had brought even his tough body to
cracking-point. The room swam before his eyes, there was burning pain
in his head, and dizziness and nausea made him collapse in his chair.
Johnson and the hostess's son, a half-grown boy, carried him to bed,
and all night he was in an ague--the return, perhaps, of the low fever
which had followed his wound at Fontenoy. There was a buzzing in his
brain which happily prevented thought, and next day, when the fever
ebbed, he was so weak that his mind was content to be vacant. By such
merciful interposition he escaped the bitterest pangs of reproach which
would have followed his realisation of failure.
The first afternoon Johnson sat with him, giving him vinegar and water
to sip, and changing the cool cloths on his brow. Alastair was drifting
aimlessly on the tide of weakness, seeing faces--Claudia, Kitty of
Queensberry, Cornbury, very notably the handsome periwigged head of the
King's Solicitor--like the stone statues in a garden. They had no
cognisance of him, and he did not wish to attract their notice, for
they belonged to a world that had vanished, and concerned him less than
the figures on a stage. By and by his consciousness became clearer, and
he was aware of a heartbreak that enveloped him like an atmosphere, a
great cloud of grief that must shadow his path for ever. And yet there
were rifts in it where light as from a spring sky broke through, and he
found himself melting at times in a sad tenderness. He had lost
tragically, but he had learned that there was more to prize than he had
dreamed.
Johnson, his face like a bishop's, sat at the bed foot, saying nothing,
but gazing at the sick man with the eyes of an old friendly dog. When
Alastair was able to drink the gruel the hostess produced, the tutor
considered that he must assist his recovery by sprightly conversation.
But the honest man's soul had been so harassed in the past days that he
found it hard to be jocose. He sprawled in his wooden chair, and the
window which faced him revealed sundry rents in his small-clothes and
the immense shabbiness of his coat. Alastair on his bed watched the
heavy pitted features, the blinking eyes, the perpetually twitching
hands with a certainty that never in his days had he seen a man so
uncouth or so wholly to be loved; and, as he looked, he seemed to
discern that in the broad brow and the noble head which was also to be
revered.
The young man's gaze having after the fashion of sick folk fixed itself
upon one spot, Johnson became conscious of it, and looked down on his
disreputable garments with distaste not unmixed with humour.
"My clothes are old and sorry," he said. "I lament the fact, sir, for I
am no lover of negligence in dress. A wise man dare not go
under-dressed till he is of consequence enough to forbear carrying the
badge of his rank upon his back. That is not my case, and I would fain
be more decent in my habiliments, which do not properly become even my
modest situation in life. But I confess that at the moment I have but
two guineas, given me by my dear young lady, and I have destined them
for another purpose than haberdashery."
What this purpose was appeared before the next evening. During the
afternoon Johnson disappeared in company with the youth of the inn, and
returned at the darkening with a face flushed and triumphant. Alastair,
whose strength was reviving, was sitting up when the door opened to
admit a deeply self-conscious figure.
It was Johnson in a second-hand riding-coat of blue camlet, cut
somewhat in the military fashion, and in all likelihood once the
property of some dashing yeoman. But that was only half of his new
magnificence, for below the riding-coat, beneath his drab coat, and
buckled above his waistcoat, was a great belt, and from the belt
depended a long scabbard.
"I make you my compliments," said Alastair. "You have acquired a cloak."
"Nay, sir, but I have acquired a better thing. I have got me a sword."
He struggled with his skirts and after some difficulty drew from its
sheath a heavy old-fashioned cut-and-thrust blade, of the broadsword
type. With it he made a pass or two, and then brought it down in a
sweep which narrowly missed the bedpost.
"Now am I armed against all enemies," he cried, stamping his foot. "If
Polyphemus comes, have at his eye," and he lunged towards the window.
The mingled solemnity and triumph of his air checked Alastair's
laughter. "This place is somewhat confined for sword-play," he said.
"Put it up, and tell me where you discovered the relic."
"I purchased it this very afternoon, through the good offices of the
lad below. There was an honest or indifferent honest fellow in the
neighbourhood who sold me cloak, belt and sword for three half-guineas.
It is an excellent weapon, and I trust to you, sir, to give me a lesson
or two in its use."
He flung off the riding-coat, unbuckled the belt and sat himself in his
accustomed chair.
"Two men are better than one on the roads," he said, "the more if both
are armed. I would consult you, sir, on a point of honour. I have told
you that I am reputably, though not highly born, and I have had a
gentleman's education. I am confident that but for a single
circumstance, no gentleman need scruple to cross swords with me or to
draw his sword by my side. The single circumstance is this--I have
reason to believe that a relative suffered death by hanging, though for
what cause I do not know, since the man disappeared utterly and his end
is only a matter of gossip. Yet I must take the supposition at its
worst. Tell me, sir, does that unhappy connection in your view deprive
me of the armigerous rights of a gentleman?"
This time Alastair did not forbear to smile.
"Why no, sir. In my own land, the gallows is reckoned an ornament to a
pedigree, and it has been the end of many a promising slip of my own
house. Indeed it is not unlikely to be the end of me. But why do you
ask the question?"
"Because I purpose to go with you to the wars."
Johnson's face was as serious as a judge's, and his dull eyes had
kindled with a kind of shamefaced ardour. The young man felt so strong
a tide of affection rising in him for this uncouth crusader that he had
to do violence to his own inclination in shaping his counsel.
"It cannot be, my dear sir," he cried. "I honour you, I love you, but I
will not permit a futile sacrifice. Had England risen for our Prince,
your aid would have been most heartily welcome, but now the war will be
in Scotland, and I tell you it is as hopeless as a battle of a single
kestrel against a mob of ravens. I fight in it, for that is my trade
and duty; I have been bred to war, and it is the quarrel of my house
and my race. But for you it is none of these things. You would be a
stranger in a foreign strife. . . . Nay, sir, but you must listen to
reason. You are a scholar and have your career to make in a far
different world. God knows I would welcome your comradeship, for I
respect your courage and I love your honest heart, but I cannot suffer
you to ride to certain ruin. Gladly I accept your convoy, but you will
stop short of Ramoth-Gilead."
The other's face was a heavy mask of disappointment. "I must be the
judge of my own path," he said sullenly.
"But you will be guided in that judgment by one who knows better than
you the certainties of the road. It is no part of a man's duty to walk
aimlessly to death."
The last word seemed to make Johnson pause. But he recovered himself.
"I have counted the cost," he said. "I fear death, God knows, but not
more than other men. I will be no stranger in your wars. I will change
my name to MacIan, and be as fierce as any Highlander."
"It cannot be. What you told Midwinter is the truth. If you are not
fitted by nature for Old England, still less are you fitted for our
wild long-memoried North. You will go back to London, Mr Johnson, and
some day you will find fortune and happiness. You will marry some day
. . ."
At the word Johnson's face grew very red, and he turned his eyes on the
ground and rolled his head with an odd nervous motion.
"I have misled you," he said. "I have been married these ten years. My
dear Tetty is now living in the vicinity of London. . . . I have not
written to her for seven weeks. _Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa!_"
He put his head in his hands and seemed to be absorbed in a passion of
remorse.
"You must surely return to her," said Alastair gently.
Johnson raised his head. "I would not have you think that I had
forgotten her. She has her own small fortune, which suffices for one,
though scant enough for two. I earn so little that I am rather an
encumbrance than an aid, and she is more prosperous in my absence."
"Yet she must miss you, and if you fall she will be widowed."
"True, true. I have no clearness in the matter. I will seek light in
prayer and sleep." He marched from the room, leaving his new
accoutrements lying neglected in a corner.
Next day Alastair was sufficiently recovered to travel, and the two set
out shortly after daylight. The woman of the inn, who had been
instructed by Midwinter, had counsel to give. The Ashbourne road was
too dangerous, for already the pursuit had begun and patrols of
Government horse were on the trail of the Highlanders; two gentlemen
such as they might be taken for the tail of the rebels and suffer
accordingly. She advised that the road should be followed by
Chesterfield and the east side of the county, which would avoid the
high hills of the Peak and bring them to Manchester and the Lancashire
levels by an easier if a longer route. It was agreed that the two
should pass as master and man--Mr Andrew Watson, the coal-merchant of
Newcastle, and his secretary.
The secretary, ere they started, drew his sword and fingered it
lovingly. "I must tell you," he whispered to Alastair, "that the
reflections of the night have not shaken my purpose. I am still
resolved to accompany you to the wars."