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diff --git a/old/43732-h/43732-h.htm b/old/43732-h/43732-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index bd6ab3d..0000000 --- a/old/43732-h/43732-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12868 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> -<!DOCTYPE html -PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> -<head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> -<title> -The Shoes of Fortune, by Neil Munro -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - <!-- - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 100%; font-style:normal; - margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; - text-align: right;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - --> -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shoes of Fortune, by Neil Munro - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Shoes of Fortune - -Author: Neil Munro - -Illustrator: A. S. Boyd - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43732] -Last Updated: March 8, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHOES OF FORTUNE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - -<div style="height: 8em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h1> -THE SHOES OF FORTUNE -</h1> -<h5> -HOW THEY BROUGHT TO MANHOOD LOVE ADVENTURE AND CONTENT AS ALSO INTO DIVERS -PERILS ON LAND AND SEA IN FOREIGN PARTS AND IN AN ALIEN ARMY PAUL GREIG OF -THE HAZEL DEN IN SCOTLAND ONE TIME PURSER OF 'THE SEVEN SISTERS' -BRIGANTINE OF HULL AND LATE LIEUTENANT IN THE REGIMENT D'AUVERGNE ALL AS -WRIT BY HIM AND NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME SET FORTH -</h5> -<p> -<br /> -</p> -<h2> -By Neil Munro -</h2> -<p> -<br /> -</p> -<h3> -Illustrated by A. S. Boyd -</h3> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="titlepage (97K)" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt="frontispiece (135K)" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<p> -<b>CONTENTS</b> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> <b>THE SHOES OF FORTUNE</b> </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XIX </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XX </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XXI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXIV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXVI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXVII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXX </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXXI. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXXII. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXIV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXV </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXVI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXVII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVIII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXIX </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XL </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XLI </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XLII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLIII </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLIV </a> -</p> - -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE SHOES OF FORTUNE -</h2> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER I -</h2> -<h3> -NARRATES HOW I CAME TO QUIT THE STUDY OF LATIN AND THE LIKE, AND TAKE TO -HARD WORK IN A MOORLAND COUNTRY -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t is an odd thing, chance—the one element to baffle the logician -and make the scheming of the wisest look as foolish in the long run as the -sandy citadel a child builds upon the shore without any thought of the -incoming tide. A strange thing, chance; and but for chance I might this -day be the sheriff of a shire, my head stuffed with the tangled phrase and -sentiment of interlocutors, or maybe no more than an advocate overlooked, -sitting in John's Coffeehouse in Edinburgh—a moody soured man with a -jug of claret, and cursing the inconsistencies of preferment to office. I -might have been that, or less, if it had not been for so trifling a -circumstance as the burning of an elderly woman's batch of scones. Had -Mistress Grant a more attentive eye to her Culross griddle, what time the -scones for her lodgers, breakfast were a-baking forty years ago, I would -never have fled furth my native land in a mortal terror of the gallows: -had her griddle, say, been higher on the swee-chain by a link or two, Paul -Greig would never have foregathered with Dan Risk, the blackguard skipper -of a notorious craft; nor pined in a foreign jail; nor connived, -unwitting, at a prince's murder; nor marched the weary leagues of France -and fought there on a beggar's wage. And this is not all that hung that -long-gone day upon a woman's stair-head gossip to the neglect of her <i>cuisine</i>, -for had this woman been more diligent at her baking I had probably never -seen my Isobel with a lover's eye. -</p> -<p> -Well, here's one who can rarely regret the past except that it is gone. It -was hard, it was cruel often; dangers the most curious and unexpected -beset me, and I got an insight to deep villainies whereof man may be -capable; yet on my word, if I had the parcelling out of a second life for -myself, I think I would have it not greatly differing from the first, that -seems in God's providence like to end in the parish where it started, -among kent and friendly folk. I would not swear to it, yet I fancy I would -have Lucky Grant again gossiping on her stair-head and her scones burned -black, that Mackellar, my fellow-lodger, might make me once more, as he -used to do, the instrument of his malcontent. -</p> -<p> -I mind, as it were yesterday, his gloomy look at the platter that morn's -morning. “Here they are again!” cried he, “fired to a cinder; it's always -that with the old wife, or else a heart of dough. For a bawbee I would -throw them in her face.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, not so much as that.” said I, “though it is mighty provoking.” - </p> -<p> -“I'm not thinking of myself,” said he, always glooming at the platter with -his dark, wild Hielan' eye. “I'm not thinking of myself,” said he, “but -it's something by way of an insult to you, that had to complain of -Sunday's haddocks.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, as to them,” quo' I, “they did brawly for me; 'twas you put your -share in your pocket and threw it away on the Green. Besides the scones -are not so bad as they look”—I broke one and ate; “they're owre good -at least for a hungry man like me to send back where they came from.” - </p> -<p> -His face got red. “What's that rubbish about the haddocks and the Green?” - said he. “You left me at my breakfast when you went to the Ram's Horn -Kirk.” - </p> -<p> -“And that's true, Jock,” said I; “but I think I have made no' so bad a -guess. You were feared to affront the landlady by leaving her ancient fish -on the ashet, and you egged me on to do the grumbling.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, it's as sure as death, Paul,” said he shamefacedly, “I hate to vex -a woman. And you're a thought wrong in your guess”—he laughed at his -own humour as he said it—“for when you were gone to your kirk I -transferred my share of the stinking fish to your empty plate.” - </p> -<p> -He jouked his head, but scarcely quick enough, for my Sallust caught him -on the ear. He replied with a volume of Buchanan the historian, the man I -like because he skelped the Lord's anointed, James the First, and for a -time there was war in Lucky Grant's parlour room, till I threw him into -the recess bed snibbed the door, and went abroad into the street leaving -my room-fellow for once to utter his own complaints. -</p> -<p> -I went out with the itch of battle on me, and that was the consequence of -a woman's havering while scones burned, and likewise my undoing, for the -High Street when I came to it was in the yeasty ferment of encountering -hosts, their cries calling poor foolish Paul Greig like a trumpet. -</p> -<p> -It had been a night and morning of snow, though I and Mackellar, so high -in Lucky Grant's chamber in Crombie's Land, had not suspected it. The dull -drab streets, with their crazy, corbelled gable-ends, had been transformed -by a silent miracle of heaven into something new and clean; where noisome -gutters were wont to brim with slops there was the napkin of the Lord. -</p> -<p> -For ordinary I hated this town of my banishment; hated its tun-bellied -Virginian merchants, so constantly airing themselves upon the Tontine -piazza and seeming to suffer from prosperity as from a disease; and felt -no great love of its women—always so much the madame to a -drab-coated lad from the moorlands; suffered from its greed and stifled -with the stinks of it. “Gardyloo! Gardyloo! Gardyloo!” Faith! I hear that -evening slogan yet, and see the daunderers on the Rottenrow skurry like -rats into the closes to escape the cascades from the attic windows. And -while I think I loved learning (when it was not too ill to come by), and -was doing not so bad in my Humanities, the carven gateway of the college -in my two sessions of a scholar's fare never but scowled upon me as I -entered. -</p> -<p> -But the snow that morning made of the city a place wherein it was good to -be young, warm-clad, and hardy. It silenced the customary traffic of the -street, it gave the morning bells a song of fairydom and the valleys of -dream; up by-ordinary tall and clean-cut rose the crow-stepped walls, the -chimney heads, and steeples, and I clean forgot my constant fancy for the -hill of Ballageich and the heather all about it. And war raged. The -students faced 'prentice lads and the journeymen of the crafts with -volleys of snowballs; the merchants in the little booths ran out tremulous -and vainly cried the watch. Charge was made and counter-charge; the air -was thick with missiles, and close at hand the silver bells had their -merry sweet chime high over the city of my banishment drowned by the -voices taunting and defiant. -</p> -<p> -Merry was that day, but doleful was the end of it, for in the fight I -smote with a snowball one of the bailies of the burgh, who had come waving -his three-cocked hat with the pomp and confidence of an elected man and -ordering an instant stoppage of our war: he made more ado about the -dignity of his office than the breakage of his spectacles, and I was haled -before my masters, where I fear I was not so penitent as prudence would -advise. -</p> -<p> -Two days later my father came in upon Dawson's cart to convoy me home. He -saw the Principal, he saw the regents of the college, and up, somewhat -clashed and melancholy, he climbed to my lodging. Mackellar fled before -his face as it had been the face of the Medusa. -</p> -<p> -“Well, Paul,” said my father, “it seems we made a mistake about your -birthday.” - </p> -<p> -“Did you?” said I, without meaning, for I knew he was ironical. -</p> -<p> -“It would seem so, at any rate,” said he, not looking my airt at all, but -sideways to the window and a tremor in his voice. “When your mother packed -your washing last Wednesday and slipped the siller I was not supposed to -see into a stocking-foot, she said, 'Now he's twenty and the worst of it -over.' Poor woman! she was sadly out of her reckoning. I'm thinking I have -here but a bairn of ten. You should still be at the dominie's.” - </p> -<p> -“I was not altogether to blame, father,” I cried. “The thing was an -accident.” - </p> -<p> -“Of course, of course,” said he soothingly. “Was't ever otherwise when the -devil joggled an elbow? Whatever it was, accident or design, it's a -session lost. Pack up, Paul, my very young boy, and we'll e'en make our -way quietly from this place where they may ken us.” - </p> -<p> -He paid the landlady her lawing, with sixpence over for her motherliness, -whereat she was ready to greet, and he took an end of my blue kist down -the stairs with me, and over with it like a common porter to the carrier's -stance. -</p> -<p> -A raw, raining day, and the rough highways over the hoof with slush of -melted snow, we were a chittering pair as we drove under the tilt of the -cart that came to the Mearns to meet us, and it was a dumb and solemn -home-coming for me. -</p> -<p> -Not that I cared much myself, for my lawyership thus cracked in the shell, -as it were I had been often seized with the notion that six feet of a -moor-lander, in a lustre gown and a horse-hair wig and a blue shalloon bag -for the fees, was a wastry of good material. But it was the dad and her at -home I thought of, and could put my neck below the cartwheel for -distressing. I knew what he thought of as he sat in the cart corner, for -many a time he had told me his plans; and now they were sadly marred. I -was to get as much as I could from the prelections of Professor Reid, work -my way through the furrows of Van Eck, Van Muyden, and the Pandects, then -go to Utrecht or Groningen for the final baking, and come back to the desk -of Coghill and Sproat, Writers to the Signet, in Spreull's Land of -Edinburgh; run errands between that dusty hole and the taverns of -Salamander Land, where old Sproat (that was my father's doer) held long -sederunts with his clients, to write a thesis finally, and graduate at the -art of making black look—not altogether white perhaps, but a kind of -dirty grey. I had been even privileged to try a sampling of the lawyer's -life before I went to college, in the chambers of MacGibbon of Lanark -town, where I spent a summer (that had been more profitably passed in my -father's fields), backing letters, fair-copying drafts of lease and -process, and indexing the letter-book. The last I hated least of all, for -I could have a half-sheet of foolscap between the pages, and under -MacGibbon's very nose try my hand at something sombre in the manner of the -old ancient ballads of the Border. Doing that same once, I gave a wild cry -and up with my inky hand and shook it. “Eh! eh!” cried MacGibbon, thinking -I had gone mad. “What ails ye?” “He struck me with his sword!” said I like -a fool, not altogether out of my frenzy; and then the snuffy old body came -round the corner of the desk, keeked into the letter-book where I should -have been doing his work, and saw that I was wasting good paper with -clinking trash. “Oh, sirs! sirs! I never misused a minute of my youth in -the like of that!” said he, sneering, and the sneer hurt. “No, I daresay -not,” I answered him. “Perhaps ye never had the inclination—nor the -art.” - </p> -<p> -I have gone through the world bound always to say what was in me, and that -has been my sore loss more than once; but to speak thus to an old man, who -had done me no ill beyond demonstrating the general world's attitude to -poetry and men of sentiment, was the blackest insolence. He was well -advised to send me home for a leathering at my father's hands. And I got -the leathering, too, though it was three months after. I had been off in -the interim upon a sloop ship out of Ayr. -</p> -<p> -But here I am havering, and the tilted cart with my father and me in it -toiling on the mucky way through the Meams; and it has escaped couping -into the Earn at the ford, and it has landed us at the gate of home; and -in all that weary journey never a word, good or ill, from the man that -loved me and my mother before all else in a world he was well content -with. -</p> -<p> -Mother was at the door; that daunted me. -</p> -<p> -“Ye must be fair starving, Paul,” quoth she softly with her hand on my -arm, and I daresay my face was blae with cold and chagrin. But my father -was not to let a disgrace well merited blow over just like that. -</p> -<p> -“Here's our little Paul, Katrine,” said he, and me towering a head or two -above the pair of them and a black down already on my face. “Here's our -little Paul. I hope you have not put by his bibs and daidlies, for the wee -man's not able to sup the good things of this life clean yet.” - </p> -<p> -And that was the last word of reproof I heard for my folly from my father -Quentin Greig. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER II -</h2> -<h3> -MISS FORTUNE'S TRYST BY WATER OF EARN, AND HOW I MARRED THE SAME -UNWITTINGLY -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>or the most part of a year I toiled and moiled like any crofter's son on -my father's poor estate, and dreary was the weird I had to dree, for my -being there at all was an advertisement to the countryside of what a fool -was young Paul Greig. “The Spoiled Horn” was what they called me in the -neighbourhood (I learned it in the taunt of a drunken packman), for I had -failed at being the spoon I was once designed for, and there was not a -ne'er-do-weel peasant nor a bankrupt portioner came craving some benefit -to my father's door but made up for his deference to the laird by his free -manner with the laird's son. The extra tenderness of my mother (if that -were possible) only served to swell my rebel heart, for I knew she was but -seeking to put me in a better conceit of myself, and I found a place -whereof I had before been fond exceedingly assume a new complexion. The -rain seemed to fall constantly that year, and the earth in spring was -sodden and sour. Hazel Den House appeared sunk in the rotten leafage of -the winter long after the lambs came home and the snipe went drumming on -the marsh, and the rookery in the holm plantation was busy with scolding -parents tutoring their young. A solemn house at its best—it is so -yet, sometimes I think, when my wife is on a jaunt at her sister's and -Walter's bairns are bedded—it was solemn beyond all description that -spring, and little the better for the coming of summer weather. For then -the trees about it, that gave it over long billows of untimbered -countryside an aspect of dark importance, by the same token robbed it (as -I thought then) of its few amenities. How it got the name of Hazel Den I -cannot tell, for autumn never browned a nut there. It was wych elm and ash -that screened Hazel Den House; the elms monstrous and grotesque with -knotty growths: when they were in their full leaf behind the house they -hid the valley of the Clyde and the Highland hills, that at bleaker -seasons gave us a sense of companionship with the wide world beyond our -infield of stunted crops. The ash towered to the number of two score and -three towards the south, shutting us off from the view there, and working -muckle harm to our kitchen-garden. Many a time my father was for cutting -them down, but mother forbade it, though her syboes suffered from the -shade and her roses grew leggy and unblooming. “That,” said she, “is the -want of constant love: flowers are like bairns; ye must be aye thinking of -them kindly to make them thrive.” And indeed there might be something in -the notion, for her apple-ringie and Dutch Admiral, jonquils, -gillyflowers, and peony-roses throve marvellously, better then they did -anywhere in the shire of Renfrew while she lived and tended them and have -never been quite the same since she died, even with a paid gardener to -look after them. -</p> -<p> -A winter loud with storm, a spring with rain-rot in the fallen leaf, a -summer whose foliage but made our home more solitary than ever, a short -autumn of stifling heats—that was the year the Spoiled Horn tasted -the bitterness of life, the bitterness that comes from the want of an aim -(that is better than the best inheritance in kind) and from a -consciousness that the world mistrusts your ability. And to cap all, there -was no word about my returning to the prelections of Professor Reid, for a -reason which I could only guess at then, but learned later was simply the -want of money. -</p> -<p> -My father comported himself to me as if I were doomed to fall into a -decline, as we say, demanding my avoidance of night airs, preaching the -Horatian virtues of a calm life in the fields, checking with a reddened -face and a half-frightened accent every turn of the conversation that gave -any alluring colour to travel or adventure. Notably he was dumb, and so -was my mother, upon the history of his family. He had had four brothers: -three of them I knew were dead and their tombs not in Mearns kirkyard; one -of them, Andrew, the youngest, still lived: I feared it might be in a -bedlam, by the avoidance they made of all reference to him. I was fated, -then, for Bedlam or a galloping consumption—so I apprehended -dolefully from the mystery of my folk; and the notion sent me often -rambling solitary over the autumn moors, cultivating a not unpleasing -melancholy and often stringing stanzas of a solemn complexion that I -cannot recall nowadays but with a laugh at my folly. -</p> -<p> -A favourite walk of mine in these moods was along the Water of Earn, where -the river chattered and sang over rocks and shallows or plunged thundering -in its linn as it did ere I was born and shall do when I and my story are -forgotten. A pleasant place, and yet I nearly always had it to myself -alone. -</p> -<p> -I should have had it always to myself but for one person—Isobel -Fortune from the Kirkillstane. She seemed as little pleased to meet me -there as I was to meet her, though we had been brought up in the same -school together; and when I would come suddenly round a bend of the road -and she appeared a hundred yards off, I noticed that she half stopped and -seemed, as it were, to swither whether she should not turn and avoid me. -It would not have surprised me had she done so, for, to tell the truth, I -was no very cheery object to contemplate upon a pleasant highway, with the -bawbee frown of a poetic gloom upon my countenance and the most curt of -salutations as I passed. What she did there all her lone so often mildly -puzzled me, till I concluded she was on a tryst with some young gentleman -of the neighbourhood; but as I never saw sign of him, I did not think -myself so much the marplot as to feel bound to take another road for my -rambling. I was all the surer 'twas a lover she was out to meet, because -she reddened guiltily each time that we encountered (a fine and sudden -charm to a countenance very striking and beautiful, as I could not but -observe even then when weightier affairs engaged me); but it seemed I was -all in error, for long after she maintained she was, like myself, -indulging a sentimental humour that she found go very well in tune with -the noise of Earn Water. -</p> -<p> -As it was her habit to be busily reading when we thus met, I had little -doubt as to the ownership of a book that one afternoon I found on the road -not long after passing her. It was—of all things in the world!—Hervey's -“Meditations.” - </p> -<p> -“It's an odd graveyard taste for a lass of that stamp,” thought I, -hastening back after her to restore the book, and when I came up to her -she was—not red this time, but wan to the very lips, and otherwise -in such confusion that she seemed to tremble upon her legs, “I think this -is yours, Isobel,” says I: we were too well acquaint from childhood for -any address more formal. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, thank you, Paul,” said she hastily. “How stupid of me to lose it!” - She took it from me; her eye fell (for the first time, I felt sure) upon -the title of the volume, and she bit her lip in a vexation. I was all the -more convinced that her book was but a blind in her rambles, and that -there was a lover somewhere; and I think I must have relaxed my silly -black frown a little, and my proud melancholy permitted a faint smile of -amusement. The flag came to her face then. -</p> -<p> -“Thank you,” said she very dryly, and she left me in the middle of the -road, like a stirk. If it had been no more than that, I should have -thought it a girl's tantrum; but the wonder was to come, for before I had -taken three steps on my resumed way I heard her run after me. I stopped, -and she stopped, and the notion struck me like a rhyme of song that there -was something inexpressibly pleasant in her panting breath and her heaving -bosom, where a pebble brooch of shining red gleamed like an eye between -her breasts. -</p> -<p> -“I'm not going to tell you a lie about it, Master Paul,” she said, almost -like to cry; “I let the book fall on purpose.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, I could have guessed as much as that, Isobel,” said I, wondering who -in all the world the fellow was. Her sun-bonnet had fallen from her head -in her running, and hung at her back on its pink ribbons, and a curl or -two of her hair played truant upon her cheek and temple. It seemed to me -the young gentleman she was willing to let a book drop for as a signal of -her whereabouts was lucky enough. -</p> -<p> -“Oh! you could have guessed!” she repeated, with a tone in which were -dumbfounderment and annoyance; “then I might have saved myself the -trouble.” And off she went again, leaving me more the stirk than ever and -greatly struck at her remorse of conscience over a little sophistry very -pardonable in a lass caught gallivanting. When she was gone and her frock -was fluttering pink at the turn of the road, I was seized for the first -time with a notion that a girl like that some way set off, as we say, or -suited with, a fine landscape. -</p> -<p> -Not five minutes later I met young David Borland of the Driepps, and there—I -told myself—the lover was revealed! He let on he was taking a short -cut for Polnoon, so I said neither buff nor sty as to Mistress Isobel. -</p> -<p> -The cool superiority of the gentleman, who had, to tell the truth, as -little in his head as I had in the heel of my shoe, somewhat galled me, -for it cried “Spoiled Horn!” as loud as if the taunt were bawled, so my -talk with him was short. There was but one topic in it to interest me. -</p> -<p> -“Has the man with the scarred brow come yet?” he asked curiously. -</p> -<p> -I did not understand. -</p> -<p> -“Then he's not your length yet,” said he, with the manifest gratification -of one who has the hanselling of great news. “Oh! I came on him this -morning outside a tavern in the Gorbals, bargaining loudly about a saddle -horse for Hazel Den. I'll warrant Hazel Den will get a start when it sees -him.” - </p> -<p> -I did not care to show young Borland much curiosity in his story, and so -it was just in the few words he gave it to me that I brought it home to -our supper-table. -</p> -<p> -My father and mother looked at each other as if I had told them a tragedy. -The supper ended abruptly. The evening worship passed unusually fast, my -father reading the Book as one in a dream, and we went to our beds nigh an -hour before the customary time. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER III -</h2> -<h3> -OF THE COMING OF UNCLE ANDREW WITH A SCARRED FOREHEAD AND A BRASS-BOUND -CHEST, AND HOW I TOOK AN INFECTION -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was a night—as often happens in the uplands of our shire in -autumn weather—of vast and brooding darkness: the world seemed to -swound in a breathless oven, and I had scarcely come to my chamber when -thunder broke wild upon the world and torrential rain began to fall. I did -not go to bed, but sat with my candle extinguished and watched the -lightning show the landscape as if it had been flooded by the gleam of -moon and star. -</p> -<p> -Between the roar of the thunder and the blatter of the rain there were -intervals of an astounding stillness of an ominous suspense, and it seemed -oddly to me, as I sat in my room, that more than I was awake in Hazel Den -House. I felt sure my father and mother sat in their room, still clad and -whispering; it was but the illusion of a moment—something felt by -the instinct and not by reason—and then a louder, nearer peal of -thunder dispelled the notion, and I made to go to bed. -</p> -<p> -I stopped like one shot, with my waistcoat half undone. -</p> -<p> -There was a sound of a horse's hoofs coming up the loan, with the beat of -them in mire sounding soft enough to make me shiver at the notion of the -rider's discomfort in that appalling night, and every now and then the -metal click of shoes, showing the animal over-reached himself in the trot. -</p> -<p> -The rider drew up at the front; a flash of the lightning and the wildest -thunder-peal of the night seemed to meet among our outhouses, and when the -roll of the thunder ceased I heard a violent rapping at the outer door. -</p> -<p> -The servants would be long ere they let this late visitor out of the -storm, I fancied, and I hurried down; but my father was there in the hall -before me, all dressed, as my curious intuition had informed me, and his -face strange and inscrutable in the light of a shaded candle. He was -making to open the door. My appearance seemed to startle him. He paused, -dubious and a trifle confused. -</p> -<p> -“I thought you had been in bed long ago,” said he, “and—” - </p> -<p> -His sentence was not finished, for the horseman broke in upon it with a -masterful rataplan upon the oak, seemingly with a whip-head or a pistol -butt, and a cry, new to my ear and uncanny, rose through the beating rain. -</p> -<p> -With a sigh the most distressing I can mind of, my father seemed to -reconcile himself to some fate he would have warded off if he could. He -unbolted and threw back the door. -</p> -<p> -Our visitor threw himself in upon us as if we held the keys of paradise—a -man like a rake for lankiness, as was manifest even through the dripping -wrap-rascal that he wore; bearded cheek and chin in a fashion that must -seem fiendish in our shaven country; with a wild and angry eye, the Greig -mole black on his temple, and an old scar livid across his sunburned brow. -He threw a three-cocked hat upon the floor with a gesture of indolent -possession. -</p> -<p> -“Well, I'm damned!” cried he, “but this is a black welcome to one's poor -brother Andy,” and scarcely looked upon my father standing with the shaded -candle in the wind. “What's to drink? Drink, do you hear that Quentin? -Drink—drink—d-r-i-n-k. A long strong drink too, and that's -telling you, and none of the whey that I'm hearing's running through the -Greigs now, that once was a reputable family of three bottles and a rummer -to top all.” - </p> -<p> -“Whist, whist, man!” pleaded father tremulously, all the man out of him as -he stood before this drunken apparition. -</p> -<p> -“Whist I quo' he. Well stap me! do you no' ken the lean pup of the -litter?” hiccoughed our visitor, with a sort of sneer that made the blood -run to my head, and for the first time I felt the great, the splendid joy -of a good cause to fight for. -</p> -<p> -“You're Andrew,” said my father simply, putting his hand upon the man's -coat sleeve in a sympathy for his drenchen clothes. -</p> -<p> -That kindly hand was jerked off rudely, an act as insolent as if he had -smitten his host upon the mouth: my heart leaped, and my fingers went at -his throat. I could have spread him out against the wall, though I knew -him now my uncle; I could have given him the rogue's quittance with a -black face and a protruding tongue. The candle fell from my father's hand; -the glass shade shattered; the hall of Hazel Den House was plunged in -darkness, and the rain drave in through the open door upon us three -struggling. -</p> -<p> -“Let him go, Paul,” whispered my father, who I knew was in terror of -frightening his wife, and he wrestled mightily with an arm of each of us. -</p> -<p> -Yet I could not let my uncle go, for with the other arm he held a knife, -and he would perhaps have died for it had not another light come on the -stair and my mother's voice risen in a pitiful cry. -</p> -<p> -We fell asunder on a common impulse, and the drunken wanderer was the -first to speak. -</p> -<p> -“Katrine,” said he; “it's always the old tale with Andy, you see; they -must be misunderstanding me,” and he bowed with a surprising -gentlemanliness that could have made me almost think him not the man who -had fouled our house with oaths and drawn a knife upon us in the darkness. -The blade of the same, by a trick of legerdemain, had gone up the sleeve -of his dripping coat. He seemed all at once sobered. He took my good -mother by the hand as she stood trembling and never to know clearly upon -what elements of murder she had come. -</p> -<p> -“It is you, Andrew,” said she, bravely smiling. “What a night to come home -in after twenty years! I'm wae to see you in such a plight. And your -horse?” said she again, lifting her candle and peering into the darkness -of the night. “I must cry up Sandy to stable your horse.” - </p> -<p> -I'll give my uncle the credit of a confusion at his own forgetfulness. -</p> -<p> -“Good Lord! Katrine,” said he, “if I did not clean forget the brute, a -fiddle-faced, spavined, spatter-dasher of a Gorbals mare, no' worth her -corn; but there's my bit kistie on her hump.” - </p> -<p> -The servant was round soon at the stabling of the mare, and my mother was -brewing something of what the gentleman had had too much already, though -she could not guess that; and out of the dripping night he dragged in none -of a rider's customary holsters but a little brass-bound chest. -</p> -<p> -“Yon night I set out for my fortune, Quentin,” said he, “I did not think I -would come back with it a bulk so small as this; did you? It was the sight -of the quiet house and the thought of all it contained that made me act -like an idiot as I came in. Still, we must just take the world as we get -it, Quentin; and I knew I was sure of a warm welcome in the old house, -from one side of it if not from the other, for the sake of lang syne. And -this is your son, is it?” he went on, looking at my six feet of -indignation not yet dead “Split me if there's whey in that piece! You near -jammed my hawze that time! Your Uncle Andrew's hawze, boy. Are you not -ashamed of yourself?” - </p> -<p> -“Not a bit,” said I between my teeth; “I leave that to you.” - </p> -<p> -He smiled till his teeth shone white in his black beard, and “Lord!” cried -he, “I'm that glad I came. It was but the toss of a bawbee, when I came to -Leith last week, whether I should have a try at the old doocot, or up Blue -Peter again and off to the Indies. I hate ceiled rooms—they mind me -of the tomb; I'm out of practice at sitting doing nothing in a parlour and -saying grace before meat, and—I give you warning, Quentin—I'll -be damned if I drink milk for supper. It was the notion of milk for supper -and all that means that kept me from calling on Katrine—and you—any -sooner. But I'm glad I came to meet a lad of spirit like young Andy here.” - </p> -<p> -“Not Andy,” said my father. “Paul is his name.” - </p> -<p> -My uncle laughed. -</p> -<p> -“That was ill done of you, Quentin,” said he; “I think it was as little as -Katrine and you could do to have kept up the family name. I suppose you -reckoned to change the family fate when you made him Paul. H'm! You must -have forgotten that Paul the Apostle wandered most, and many ways fared -worst of all the rest. I haven't forgotten my Bible, you see, Quentin.” - </p> -<p> -We were now in the parlour room; a servant lass was puffing up a -new-lighted fire; my uncle, with his head in the shade, had his greatcoat -off, and stood revealed in shabby garments that had once been most -genteel; and his brass-bound fortune, that he seemed averse from parting -with a moment, was at his feet. Getting no answer to what he had said of -the disciples, he looked from one to the other of us and laughed slyly. -</p> -<p> -“Take off your boots, Andy,” said my father. -</p> -<p> -“And where have you been since—since—the Plantations?” - </p> -<p> -“Stow that, Quentin!” cried my uncle, with an oath and his eye on me. -“What Plantations are you blethering about? And where have I been? Ask me -rather where have I not been. It makes me dizzy even to think of it: with -rotten Jesuits and Pagan gentlemen; with France and Spain, and with filthy -Lascars, lying Greeks, Eboe slaves, stinking niggers, and slit-eyed -Chinese! Oh! I tell you I've seen things in twenty years. And places, too: -this Scotland, with its infernal rain and its grey fields and its rags, -looks like a nightmare to me yet. You may be sure I'll be out of it pretty -fast again.” - </p> -<p> -“Poor Scotland!” said father ambiguously. -</p> -<p> -There must be people in the world who are oddly affected by the names of -places, peoples, things that have never come within their own experience. -Till this day the name of Barbadoes influences me like a story of -adventure; and when my Uncle Andrew—lank, bearded, drenched with -storm, stood in our parlour glibly hinting at illimitable travel, I lost -my anger with the tipsy wretch and felt a curious glow go through my -being. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER IV -</h2> -<h3> -I COME UPON THE RED SHOES -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">U</span>ncle Andrew settled for the remainder of his time into our domestic world -at Hazel Den as if his place had been kept warm for him since ever he went -away. For the remainder of his time, I say, because he was to be in the -clods of Mearns kirkyard before the hips and haws were off the hedges; and -I think I someway saw his doom in his ghastly countenance the first -morning he sat at our breakfast table, contrite over his folly of the -night before, as you could see, but carrying off the situation with -worldly <i>sang froid</i>, and even showing signs of some affection for my -father. -</p> -<p> -His character may be put in two words—he was a lovable rogue; his -tipsy bitterness to the goodman his brother may be explained almost as -briefly: he had had a notion of Katrine Oliver, and had courted her before -ever she met my father, and he had lost her affection through his own -folly. Judging from what I would have felt myself in the like -circumstances, his bitterest punishment for a life ill spent must have -been to see Katrine Oliver's pitying kindness to him now, and the sight of -that douce and loving couple finding their happiness in each other must -have been a constant sermon to him upon repentance. -</p> -<p> -Yet, to tell the truth, I fear my Uncle Andrew was not constituted for -repentance or remorse. He had slain a man honestly once, and had suffered -the Plantations, but beyond that (and even that included, as he must ever -insist) he had been guilty of no mean act in all his roving career. -Follies—vices—extremes—ay, a thousand of them; but for -most his conscience never pricked him. On the contrary, he would narrate -with gusto the manifold jeopardies his own follies brought him into; his -wan face, nigh the colour of a shroud, would flush, and his eyes dance -humorously as he shocked the table when we sat at meals, our spoons -suspended in the agitation created by his wonderful histories. -</p> -<p> -Kept to a moderation with the bottle, and with the constant influence of -my mother, who used to feed the rogue on vegetables and, unknown to him, -load his broth with simples as a cure for his craving, Uncle Andrew was, -all things considered, an acquisition to Hazel Den House. Speaking for -myself, he brought the element of the unusual and the unexpected to a -place where routine had made me sick of my own society; and though the man -in his sober senses knew he was dying on his feet, he was the cheeriest -person of our company sequestered so remote in the moors. It was a lesson -in resignation to see yon merry eyes loweing like lamps over his tombstone -cheeks, and hear him crack a joke in the flushed and heaving interludes of -his cough. -</p> -<p> -It was to me he ever directed the most sensational of his extraordinary -memorials. My father did not like it; I saw it in his eye. It was apparent -to me that a remonstrance often hung on the tip of his tongue. He would -invent ridiculous and unnecessary tasks to keep me out of reach of that -alluring <i>raconteur</i>, and nobody saw it plainer than Uncle Andrew, -who but laughed with the mischievousness of a boy. -</p> -<p> -Well, the long and short of it was just what Quentin Greig feared—the -Spoiled Horn finally smit with a hunger for the road of the Greigs. For -three hundred years—we could go no further back, because of a bend -sinister—nine out of ten of that family had travelled that road, -that leads so often to a kistful of sailor's shells and a death with boots -on. It was a fate in the blood, like the black hair of us, the mole on the -temple, and the trick of irony. It was that ailment my father had feared -for me; it was that kept the household silent upon missing brothers (they -were dead, my uncle told me, in Trincomalee, and in Jamaica, and a yard in -the Borough of London); it was that inspired the notion of a lawyer's life -for Paul Greig. -</p> -<p> -Just when I was in the deepmost confidence of Uncle Andrew, who was by -then confined to his bed and suffering the treatment of Doctor Clews, his -stories stopped abruptly and he began to lament the wastry of his life. If -the thing had been better acted I might have been impressed, for our -follies never look just like what they are till we are finally on the -broad of our backs and the Fell Sergeant's step is at the door. But it was -not well acted; and when the wicked Uncle Andrew groaned over the very -ploys he had a week ago exulted in, I recognised some of my mother's -commonest sentiments in his sideways sermon. She had got her quondam Andy, -for lang syne's sake, to help her keep her son at home; and he was doing -his best, poor man, but a trifle late in the day. -</p> -<p> -“Uncle Andrew,” said I, never heeding his homily, “tell me what came of -the pock-marked tobacco planter when you and the negro lay in the swamp -for him?” - </p> -<p> -He groaned hopelessly. -</p> -<p> -“A rotten tale, Paul, my lad,” said he, never looking me in the face; “I -rue the day I was mixed up in that affair.” - </p> -<p> -“But it was a good story so far as it went, no further gone than Wednesday -last,” I protested. -</p> -<p> -He laughed at that, and for half an hour he put off the new man of my -mother's bidding, and we were on the old naughty footing again. He -concluded by bequeathing to me for the twentieth time the brass-bound -chest, and its contents that we had never seen nor could guess the nature -of. But now for the first time he let me know what I might expect there. -</p> -<p> -“It's not what Quentin might consider much,” said he, “for there's not a -guelder of money in it, no, nor so little as a groat, for as the world's -divided ye can't have both the money and the dance, and I was aye the -fellow for the dance. There's scarcely anything in it, Paul, but the trash—ahem!—that -is the very fitting reward of a life like mine.” - </p> -<p> -“And still and on, uncle,” said I, “it is a very good tale about the -pock-marked man.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah! You're there, Greig!” cried the rogue, laughing till his hoast came -to nigh choke him. “Well, the kist's yours, anyway, such as it is; and -there's but one thing in it—to be strict, a pair—that I set -any store by as worth leaving to my nephew.” - </p> -<p> -“It ought to be spurs,” said I, “to drive me out of this lamentable -countryside and to where a fellow might be doing something worth while.” - </p> -<p> -“Eh!” he cried, “you're no' so far off it, for it's a pair of shoes.” - </p> -<p> -“A pair of shoes!” I repeated, half inclined to think that Uncle Andrew -was doited at last. -</p> -<p> -“A pair of shoes, and perhaps in some need of the cobbler, for I have worn -them a good deal since I got them in Madras. They were not new when I got -them, but by the look of them they're not a day older now. They have got -me out of some unco' plights in different parts of the world, for all that -the man who sold them to me at a bonny penny called them the Shoes of -Sorrow; and so far as I ken, the virtue's in them yet.” - </p> -<p> -“A doomed man's whim,” thought I, and professed myself vastly gratified by -his gift. -</p> -<p> -He died next morning. It was Candlemas Day. He went out at last like a -crusie wanting oil. In the morning he had sat up in bed to sup porridge -that, following a practice I had made before his reminiscences concluded, -I had taken in to him myself. Tremendous long and lean the upper part of -him looked, and the cicatrice upon his brow made his ghastliness the more -appalling. When he sat against the bolsters he could see through the -window into the holm field, and, as it happened, what was there but a wild -young roe-deer driven down from some higher part of the country by stress -of winter weather, and a couple of mongrel dogs keeping him at bay in an -angle of the fail dyke. -</p> -<p> -I have seldom seen a man more vastly moved than Uncle Andrew looking upon -this tragedy of the wilds. He gasped as though his chest would crack, a -sweat burst on his face. -</p> -<p> -“That's—that's the end o't, Paul, my lad!” said he. “Yonder's your -roving uncle, and the tykes have got him cornered at last. No more the -heather and the brae; no more—no more—no more—” - </p> -<p> -Such a change came on him that I ran and cried my mother ben, and she and -father were soon at his bedside. -</p> -<p> -It was to her he turned his eyes, that had seen so much of the spacious -world of men and women and all their multifarious interests, great and -little. They shone with a light of memory and affection, so that I got -there and then a glimpse of the Uncle Andrew of innocence and the Uncle -Andrew who might have been if fate had had it otherwise. -</p> -<p> -He put out his hand and took hers, and said goodbye. -</p> -<p> -“The hounds have me, Katrine,” said he. “I'm at the fail dyke corner.” - </p> -<p> -“I'll go out and whistle them off, uncle,” said I, fancying it all a -doited man's illusion, though the look of death was on him; but I stood -rebuked in the frank gaze he gave me of a fuller comprehension than mine, -though he answered me not. -</p> -<p> -And then he took my father's hand in his other, and to him too he said -farewell. -</p> -<p> -“You're there, Quentin!” said he; “and Katrine—Katrine—Katrine -chose by far the better man. God be merciful to poor Andy Greig, a -sinner.” And these were his last words. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER V -</h2> -<h3> -A SPOILED TRYST, AND OTHER THINGS THAT FOLLOWED ON THE OPENING OF THE -CHEST -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he funeral was over before I cared to examine my bequest, and then I went -to it with some reluctance, for if a pair of shoes was the chief contents -of the brass-bound chest, there was like to be little else except the -melancholy relics of a botched life. It lay where he left it on the night -he came—under the foot of his bed—and when I lifted the lid I -felt as if I was spying upon a man through a keyhole. Yet, when I came -more minutely to examine the contents, I was disappointed that at the -first reflection nothing was there half so pregnant as his own most casual -tale to rouse in me the pleasant excitation of romance. -</p> -<p> -A bairn's caul—that sailor's trophy that has kept many a mariner -from drowning only that he might die a less pleasant death; a broken -handcuff, whose meaning I cared not to guess at; a pop or pistol; a -chap-book of country ballads, that possibly solaced his exile from the -land they were mostly written about; the batters of a Bible, with nothing -between them but his name in his mother's hand on the inside of the board; -a traveller's log or itinerary, covering a period of fifteen years, -extremely minute in its detail and well written; a broken sixpence and the -pair of shoes. -</p> -<p> -The broken sixpence moved my mother to tears, for she had had the other -half twenty years ago, before Andrew Greig grew ne'er-do-weel; the shoes -failed to rouse in her or in my father any interest whatever. If they -could have guessed it, they would have taken them there and then and sunk -them in the deepest linn of Earn. -</p> -<p> -There was little kenspeckle about them saving their colour, which was a -dull dark red. They were of the most excellent material, with a great deal -of fine sewing thrown away upon them in parts where it seems to me their -endurance was in no wise benefited, and an odd pair of silver buckles gave -at your second glance a foreign look to them. -</p> -<p> -I put them on at the first opportunity: they fitted me as if my feet had -been moulded to them, and I sat down to the study of the log-book. The -afternoon passed, the dusk came. I lit a candle, and at midnight, when I -reached the year of my uncle's escape from the Jesuits of Spain, I came to -myself gasping, to find the house in an alarm, and that lanthorns were out -about Earn Water looking for me, while all the time I was <i>perdu</i> in -the dead uncle's chamber in the baron's wing, as we called it, of Hazel -Den House. I pretended I had fallen asleep; it was the first and the last -time I lied to my mother, and something told me she knew I was deceiving -her. She looked at the red shoes on my feet. -</p> -<p> -“Ugly brogues!” said she; “it's a wonder to me you would put them on your -feet. You don't know who has worn them.” - </p> -<p> -“They were Uncle Andy's,” said I, complacently looking at them, for they -fitted like a glove; the colour was hardly noticeable in the evening, and -the buckles were most becoming. -</p> -<p> -“Ay! and many a one before him, I'm sure,” said she, with distaste in her -tone, “I don't think them nice at all, Paul,” and she shuddered a little. -</p> -<p> -“That's but a freit,” said I; “but it's not likely I'll wear much of such -a legacy.” I went up and left them in the chest, and took the diary into -my own room and read Uncle Andrew's marvellous adventures in the trade of -rover till it was broad daylight. -</p> -<p> -When I had come to the conclusion it seemed as if I had been in the -delirium of a fever, so tempestuous and unreal was that memoir of a wild -loose life. The sea was there, buffeting among the pages in rollers and -breakers; there were the chronicles of a hundred ports, with boozing kens -and raving lazarettos in them; far out isles and cays in nameless oceans, -and dozing lagoons below tropic skies; a great clash of weapons and a -bewildering deal of political intrigue in every part of the Continent from -Calais to Constantinople. My uncle's narrative in life had not hinted at -one half the marvel of his career, and I read his pages with a rapture, as -one hears a noble piece of music, fascinated to the uttermost, and finding -no moral at the end beyond that the world we most of us live in with -innocence and ignorance is a crust over tremendous depths. And then I -burned the book. It went up in a grey smoke on the top of the fire that I -had kept going all night for its perusal; and the thing was no sooner done -than I regretted it, though the act was dictated by the seemly enough idea -that its contents would only distress my parents if they came to their -knowledge. -</p> -<p> -For days—for weeks—for a season—I went about, my head -humming with Uncle Andy's voice recounting the most stirring of his -adventures as narrated in the log-book. I had been infected by almost his -first words the night he came to Hazel Den House, and made a magic chant -of the mere names of foreign peoples; now I was fevered indeed; and when I -put on the red shoes (as I did of an evening, impelled by some dandyism -foreign to my nature hitherto), they were like the seven-league boots for -magic, as they set my imagination into every harbour Uncle Andy had -frequented and made me a guest at every inn where he had met his boon -companions. -</p> -<p> -I was wearing them the next time I went on my excursion to Earn side and -there met Isobel Fortune, who had kept away from the place since I had -smiled at my discovery of her tryst with Hervey's “Meditations.” She came -upon me unexpectedly, when the gentility of my shoes and the recollection -of all that they had borne of manliness was making me walk along the road -with a very high head and an unusually jaunty step. -</p> -<p> -She seemed struck as she came near, with her face displaying her -confusion, and it seemed to me she was a new woman altogether—at -least, not the Isobel I had been at school with and seen with an -indifferent eye grow up like myself from pinafores. It seemed suddenly -scandalous that the like of her should have any correspondence with so -ill-suited a lover as David Borland of the Dreipps. -</p> -<p> -For the first time (except for the unhappy introduction of Hervey's -“Meditations”) we stopped to speak to each other. She was the most -bewitching mixture of smiles and blushes, and stammering now and then, and -vastly eager to be pleasant to me, and thinks I, “My lass, you're keen on -trysting when it's with Borland.” - </p> -<p> -The very thought of the fellow in that connection made me angry in her -interest; and with a mischievous intention of spoiling his sport if he -hovered, as I fancied, in the neighbourhood, or at least of delaying his -happiness as long as I could, I kept the conversation going very blithe -indeed. -</p> -<p> -She had a laugh, low and brief, and above all sincere, which is the great -thing in laughter, that was more pleasant to hear than the sound of Earn -in its tinkling hollow among the ferns: it surprised me that she should -favour my studied and stupid jocosities with it so frequently. Here was -appreciation! I took, in twenty minutes, a better conceit of myself, than -the folks at home could have given me in the twelve months since I left -the college, and I'll swear to this date 'twas the consciousness of my -fancy shoes that put me in such good key. -</p> -<p> -She saw my glance to them at last complacently, and pretended herself to -notice them for the first time. -</p> -<p> -She smiled—little hollows came near the corners of her lips; of a -sudden I minded having once kissed Mistress Grant's niece in a stair-head -frolic in Glasgow High Street, and the experience had been pleasant -enough. -</p> -<p> -“They're very nice,” said Isobel. -</p> -<p> -“They're all that,” said I, gazing boldly at her dimples. She flushed and -drew in her lips. -</p> -<p> -“No, no!” I cried, ”'twas not them I was thinking of; but their neighbours. -I never saw you had dimples before.” - </p> -<p> -At that she was redder than ever. -</p> -<p> -“I could not help that, Paul,” said she; “they have been always there, and -you are getting very audacious. I was thinking of your new shoes.” - </p> -<p> -“How do you know they're new?” - </p> -<p> -“I could tell,” said she, “by the sound of your footstep before you came -in sight.” - </p> -<p> -“It might not have been my footstep,” said I, and at that she was taken -back. -</p> -<p> -“That is true,” said she, hasty to correct herself. “I only thought it -might be your footstep, as you are often this way.” - </p> -<p> -“It might as readily have been David Borland's. I have seen him about -here.” I watched her as closely as I dared: had her face changed, I would -have felt it like a blow. -</p> -<p> -“Anyway, they're very nice, your new shoes,” said she, with a marvellous -composure that betrayed nothing. -</p> -<p> -“They were uncle's legacy,” I explained, “and had travelled far in many -ways about the world; far—and fast.” - </p> -<p> -“And still they don't seem to be in such a hurry as your old ones,” said -she, with a mischievous air. Then she hastened to cover what might seem a -rudeness. “Indeed, they're very handsome, Paul, and become you very much, -and—and—and—” - </p> -<p> -“They're called the Shoes of Sorrow; that's the name my uncle had for -them,” said I, to help her to her own relief. -</p> -<p> -“Indeed, and I hope it may be no more than a by-name,” she said gravely. -</p> -<p> -The day had the first rumour of spring: green shoots thrust among the bare -bushes on the river side, and the smell of new turned soil came from a -field where a plough had been feiring; above us the sky was blue, in the -north the land was pleasantly curved against silver clouds. -</p> -<p> -And one small bird began to pipe in a clump of willows, that showered a -dust of gold upon us when the little breeze came among the branches. I -looked at all and I looked at Isobel Fortune, so trim and bonny, and it -seemed there and then good to be a man and my fortunes all to try. -</p> -<p> -“Sorrow here or sorrow there, Isobel,” I said, “they are the shoes to take -me away sooner or later from Hazel Den.” - </p> -<p> -She caught my meaning with astounding quickness. -</p> -<p> -“Are you in earnest?” she asked soberly, and I thought she could not have -been more vexed had it been David Borland. -</p> -<p> -“Another year of this.” said I, looking at the vacant land, “would break -my heart.” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed, Paul, and I thought Earn-side was never so sweet as now,” said -she, vexed like, as if she was defending a companion. -</p> -<p> -“That is true, too,” said I, smiling into the very depths of her large -dark eyes, where I saw a pair of Spoiled Horns as plainly as if I looked -in sunny weather into Linn of Earn. “That is true, too. I have never been -better pleased with it than to-day. But what in the world's to keep me? -It's all bye with the college—at which I'm but middling well -pleased; it's all bye with the law—for which thanks to Heaven! and, -though they seem to think otherwise at Hazel Den House, I don't believe -I've the cut of a man to spend his life among rowting cattle and dour clay -land.” - </p> -<p> -“I daresay not; it's true,” said she stammeringly, with one fast glance -that saw me from the buckles of my red shoes to the underlids of my eyes. -For some reason or other she refused to look higher, and the distant -landscape seemed to have charmed her after that. She drummed with a toe -upon the path; she bit her nether lip; upon my word, the lass had tears at -her eyes! I had, plainly, kept her long enough from her lover. “Well, it's -a fine evening; I must be going,” said I stupidly, making a show at -parting, and an ugly sense of annoyance with David Borland stirring in my -heart. “But it will rain before morning,” said she, making to go too, but -always looking to the hump of Dungoyne that bars the way to the Hielands. -“I think, after all, Master Paul, I liked the old shoon better than the -new ones.” - </p> -<p> -“Do you say so?” I asked, astonished at the irrelevance that came rapidly -from her lips, as if she must cry it out or choke. “And how comes that?” - </p> -<p> -“Just because—” said she, and never a word more, like a woman, nor -fair good-e'en nor fair good-day to ye, but off she went, and I was the -stirk again. -</p> -<p> -I looked after her till she went out of sight, wondering what had been the -cause of her tirravee. She fair ran at the last, as if eager to get out of -my sight; and when she disappeared over the brae that rose from the -river-side there was a sense of deprivation within me. I was clean gone in -love and over the lugs in it with Isobel Fortune. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER VI -</h2> -<h3> -MY DEED ON THE MOOR OF MEARNS -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">N</span>ext day I shot David Borland of the Driepps. -</p> -<p> -It was the seventh of March, the first day I heard the laverock that -season, and it sang like to burst its heart above the spot where the lad -fell with a cry among the rushes. It rose from somewhere in our -neighbourhood, aspiring to the heavens, but chained to earth by its own -song; and even yet I can recall the eerie influence of that strange -conjunction of sin and song as I stood knee-deep in the tangle of the moor -with the pistol smoking in my hand. -</p> -<p> -To go up to the victim of my jealousy as he lay ungainly on the ground, -his writhing over, was an ordeal I could not face. -</p> -<p> -“Davie, Davie!” I cried to him over the thirty paces; but I got no reply -from yon among the rushes. I tried to wet my cracking lips with a tongue -like a cork, and “Davie, oh, Davie, are ye badly hurt?” I cried, in a -voice I must have borrowed from ancient time when my forefathers fought -with the forest terrors. -</p> -<p> -I listened and I better listened, but Borland still lay there at last, a -thing insensate like a gangrel's pack, and in all the dreary land there -was nothing living but the laverock and me. -</p> -<p> -The bird was high—a spot upon the blue; his song, I am sure, was the -song of his kind, that has charmed lovers in summer fields from old time—a -melody rapturous, a message like the message of the evening star that God -no more fondly loves than that small warbler in desert places—and -yet there and then it deaved me like a cry from hell. No heavenly message -had the lark for me: he flew aloft there into the invisible, to tell of -this deed of mine among the rushes. Not God alone would hear him tell his -story: they might hear it, I knew, in shepherds' cots; they might hear it -in an old house bowered dark among trees; the solitary witness of my crime -might spread the hue and cry about the shire; already the law might be on -the road for young Paul Greig. -</p> -<p> -I seemed to listen a thousand years to that telltale in the air; for a -thousand years I scanned the blue for him in vain, yet when I looked at my -pistol again the barrel was still warm. -</p> -<p> -It was the first time I had handled such a weapon. -</p> -<p> -A senseless tool it seemed, and yet the crooking of a finger made it the -confederate of hate; though it, with its duty done, relapsed into a -heedless silence, I, that owned it for my instrument, must be wailing in -my breast, torn head to foot with thunders of remorse. -</p> -<p> -I raised the hammer, ran a thumb along the flint, seeing something -fiendish in the jaws that held it; I lifted up the prime-cap, and it -seemed some miracle of Satan that the dust I had put there in the peace of -my room that morning in Hazel Den should have disappeared. “Truefitt” on -the lock; a silver shield and an initial graven on it; a butt with a -dragon's grin that had seemed ridiculous before, and now seemed to cry -“Cain!” Lord! that an instrument like this in an unpractised hand should -cut off all young Borland's earthly task, end his toil with plough and -harrow, his laugh and story. -</p> -<p> -I looked again at the shapeless thing at thirty paces. “It cannot be,” I -told myself; and I cried again, in the Scots that must make him cease his -joke, “I ken ye're only lettin' on, Davie. Get up oot o' that and we'll -cry quits.” - </p> -<p> -But there was no movement; there was no sound; the tell-tale had the -heavens to himself. -</p> -<p> -All the poltroon in me came a-top and dragged my better man round about, -let fall the pistol from my nerveless fingers and drove me away from that -place. It was not the gallows I thought of (though that too was sometimes -in my mind), but of the frightful responsibility I had made my burden, to -send a human man before his Maker without a preparation, and my bullet -hole upon his brow or breast, to tell for ever through the roaring ring of -all eternity that this was the work of Paul Greig. The rushes of the moor -hissed me as I ran blindly through them; the tufts of heather over Whiggit -Knowe caught at me to stop me; the laverock seemed to follow overhead, a -sergeant of provost determined on his victim. -</p> -<p> -My feet took me, not home to the home that was mine no more, but to -Earn-side, where I felt the water crying in its linn would drown the sound -of the noisy laverock; and the familiar scene would blot for a space the -ugly sight from my eyes. I leant at the side to lave my brow, and could -scarce believe that this haggard countenance I saw look up at me from the -innocent waters was the Spoiled Horn who had been reflected in Isobel's -eyes. Over and over again I wet my lips and bathed my temples; I washed my -hands, and there was on the right forefinger a mark I bear to this day -where the trigger guard of the pistol in the moments of my agony had cut -me to the bone without my knowing it. -</p> -<p> -When my face looked less like clay and my plans were clear, I rose and -went home. -</p> -<p> -My father and mother were just sitting to supper, and I joined them. They -talked of a cousin to be married in Drymen at Michaelmas, of an income in -the leg of our mare, of Sabbath's sermon, of things that were as far from -me as I from heaven, and I heard them as one in a dream, far-off. What I -was hearing most of the time was the laverock setting the hue and cry of -Paul Greig's crime around the world and up to the Throne itself, and what -I was seeing was the vacant moor, now in the dusk, and a lad's remains -awaiting their discovery. The victuals choked me as I pretended to eat; my -father noticed nothing, my mother gave a glance, and a fright was in her -face. -</p> -<p> -I went up to my room and searched a desk for some verses that had been -gathering there in my twelve months' degradation, and particularly for one -no more than a day old with Isobel Fortune for its theme. It was all bye -with that! I was bound to be glancing at some of the lines as I furiously -tore them up and threw them out of the window into the bleaching-green; -and oh! but the black sorrows and glooms that were there recorded seemed a -mockery in the light of this my terrible experience. They went by the -window, every scrap: then I felt cut off from every innocent day of my -youth, the past clean gone from me for ever. -</p> -<p> -The evening worship came. -</p> -<p> -<i>“If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost ends of -the sea.”</i> -</p> -<p> -My father, peering close at the Book through his spectacles, gave out the -words as if he stood upon a pulpit, deliberate—too deliberate for -Cain his son, that sat with his back to the window shading his face from a -mother's eyes. They were always on me, her eyes, throughout that last -service; they searched me like a torch in a pit, and wae, wae was her -face! -</p> -<p> -When we came to pray and knelt upon the floor, I felt as through my shut -eyes that hers were on me even then, exceeding sad and troubled. They -followed me like that when I went up, as they were to think, to my bed, -and I was sitting at my window in the dark half an hour later when she -came up after me. She had never done the like before since I was a child. -</p> -<p> -“Are ye bedded, Paul?” she whispered in the dark. -</p> -<p> -I could not answer her in words, but I stood to my feet and lit a candle, -and she saw that I was dressed. -</p> -<p> -“What ails ye to-night?” she asked trembling. “I'm going away, mother,” I -answered. “There's something wrong?” she queried in great distress. -</p> -<p> -“There's all that!” I confessed. “It'll be time for you to ken about that -in the morning, but I must be off this night.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, Paul, Paul!” she cried, “I did not like to see you going out in these -shoes this afternoon, and I ken't that something ailed ye.” - </p> -<p> -“The road to hell suits one shoe as well's another,” said I bitterly; -“where the sorrow lies is that ye never saw me go out with a different -heart. Mother, mother, the worst ye can guess is no' so bad as the worst -ye've yet to hear of your son.” - </p> -<p> -I was in a storm of roaring emotions, yet her next words startled me. -</p> -<p> -“It's Isobel Fortune of the Kirkillstane,” she said, trying hard to smile -with a wan face in the candle light. -</p> -<p> -“It <i>was</i>—poor dear! Am I not in torment when I think that she -must know it?” - </p> -<p> -“I thought it was that that ailed ye, Paul,” said she, as if she were -relieved. “Look; I got this a little ago on the bleaching-green—this -scrap of paper in your write and her name upon it. Maybe I should not have -read it.” And she handed me part of that ardent ballad I had torn less -than an hour ago. -</p> -<p> -I held it in the flame of her candle till it was gone, our hands all -trembling, and “That's the end appointed for Paul Greig,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, Paul, Paul, it cannot be so unco'!” she cried in terror, and clutched -me at the arm. -</p> -<p> -“It is—it is the worst.” - </p> -<p> -“And yet—and yet—you're my son, Paul. Tell me.” - </p> -<p> -She looked so like a reed in the winter wind, so frail and little and -shivering in my room, that I dared not tell her there and then. I said it -was better that both father and she should hear my tale together, and we -went into the room where already he was bedded but not asleep. He sat up -staring at our entry, a night-cowl tassel dangling on his brow. -</p> -<p> -“There's a man dead—” I began, when he checked me with a shout. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop!” he cried, and put my mother in a chair. “I have heard the -tale before with my brother Andy, and the end was not for women's ears.” - </p> -<p> -“I must know, Quentin,” said his wife, blanched to the lip but determined, -and then he put his arm about her waist. It seemed like a second murder to -wrench those tender hearts that loved me, but the thing was bound to do. -</p> -<p> -I poured out my tale at one breath and in one sentence, and when it ended -my mother was in her swound. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, Paul!” cried the poor man, his face like a clout; “black was the day -she gave you birth!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER VII -</h2> -<h3> -QUENTIN GREIG LOSES A SON, AND I SET OUT WITH A HORSE AS ALL MY FORTUNE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">H</span>e pushed me from the chamber as I had been a stranger intruding, and I -went to the trance door and looked out at the stretching moorlands lit by -an enormous moon that rose over Cathkin Braes, and an immensity of stars. -For the first time in all my life I realised the heedlessness of nature in -human affairs the most momentous. For the moon swung up serene beyond -expression; the stars winked merrily: a late bird glid among the bushes -and perched momentarily on a bough of ash to pipe briefly almost with the -passion of the spring. But not the heedlessness of nature influenced me so -much as the barren prospect of the world that the moon and stars revealed. -There was no one out there in those deep spaces of darkness I could claim -as friend or familiar. Where was I to go? What was I to do? Only the -beginnings of schemes came to me—schemes of concealment and -disguise, of surrender even—but the last to be dismissed as soon as -it occurred to me, for how could I leave this house the bitter bequest of -a memory of the gallows-tree? -</p> -<p> -Only the beginnings, I say, for every scheme ran tilt against the obvious -truth that I was not only without affection or regard out there, but -without as much as a crown of money to purchase the semblance of either. -</p> -<p> -I could not have stood very long there when my father came out, his face -like clay, and aged miraculously, and beckoned me to the parlour. -</p> -<p> -“Your mother—my wife,” said he, “is very ill, and I am sending for -the doctor. The horse is yoking. There is another woman in Driepps who—God -help her!—will be no better this night, but I wish in truth her case -was ours, and that it was you who lay among the heather.” - </p> -<p> -He began pacing up and down the floor, his eyes bent, his hands -continually wringing, his heart bursting, as it were, with sighs and the -dry sobs of the utmost wretchedness. As for me, I must have been clean -gyte (as the saying goes), for my attention was mostly taken up with the -tassel of his nightcap that bobbed grotesquely on his brow. I had not seen -it since, as a child, I used to share his room. -</p> -<p> -“What! what!” he cried at last piteously, “have ye never a word to say? -Are ye dumb?” He ran at me and caught me by the collar of the coat and -tried to shake me in an anger, but I felt it no more than I had been a -stone. -</p> -<p> -“What did ye do it for? What in heaven's name did ye quarrel on?” - </p> -<p> -“It was—it was about a girl,” I said, reddening even at that -momentous hour to speak of such a thing to him. -</p> -<p> -“A girl!” he repeated, tossing up his hands. “Keep us! Hoo lang are ye oot -o' daidlies? Well! well!” he went on, subduing himself and prepared to -listen. I wished the tassel had been any other colour than crimson, and -hung fairer on the middle of his forehead; it seemed to fascinate me. And -he, belike, forgot that I was there, for he thought, I knew, continually -of his wife, and he would stop his feverish pacing on the floor, and -hearken for a sound from the room where she was quartered with the maid. I -made no answer. -</p> -<p> -“Well, well!” he cried again fiercely, turning upon me. “Out with it; out -with the whole hellish transaction, man!” - </p> -<p> -And then I told him in detail what before my mother I had told in a brief -abstract. -</p> -<p> -How that I had met young Borland coming down the breast of the brae at -Kirkillstane last night and— -</p> -<p> -“Last night!” he cried. “Are ye havering? I saw ye go to your bed at ten, -and your boots were in the kitchen.” - </p> -<p> -It was so, I confessed. I had gone to my room but not to bed, and had -slipped out by the window when the house was still, with Uncle Andrew's -shoes. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, lad!” he cried, “it's Andy's shoes you stand in sure enough, for I -have seen him twenty years syne in the plight that you are in this night. -Merciful heaven! what dark blotch is in the history of this family of ours -that it must ever be embroiled in crimes of passion and come continually -to broken ends of fortune? I have lived stark honest and humble, fearing -the Lord; the covenants have I kept, and still and on it seems I must -beget a child of the Evil One!” - </p> -<p> -And how, going out thus under cover of night, I had meant to indulge a -boyish fancy by seeing the light of Isobel Fortune's window. And how, -coming to the Kirkillstane, I met David Borland leaving the house, -whistling cheerfully. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, Paul, Paul!” cried my father, “I mind of you an infant on her knees -that's ben there, and it might have been but yesterday your greeting in -the night wakened me to mourn and ponder on your fate.” And how Borland, -divining my object there, and himself new out triumphant from that -cheerful house of many daughters, made his contempt for the Spoiled Horn -too apparent. -</p> -<p> -“You walked to the trough-stane when you were a twelvemonth old,” said my -father with the irrelevance of great grief, as if he recalled a dead son's -infancy. -</p> -<p> -And how, maddened by some irony of mine, he had struck a blow upon my -chest, and so brought my challenge to something more serious and -gentlemanly than a squalid brawl with fists upon the highway. -</p> -<p> -I stopped my story; it seemed useless to be telling it to one so much -preoccupied with the thought of the woman he loved. His lips were open, -his eyes were constant on the door. -</p> -<p> -But “Well! Well!” he cried again eagerly, and I resumed. -</p> -<p> -Of how I had come home, and crept into my guilty chamber and lay the long -night through, torn by grief and anger, jealousy and distress. And how -evading the others of the household as best I could that day, I had in the -afternoon at the hour appointed gone out with Uncle Andrew's pistol. -</p> -<p> -My father moaned—a waefu' sound! -</p> -<p> -And found young Borland up on the moor before me with such another weapon, -his face red byordinary, his hands and voice trembling with passion. -</p> -<p> -“Poor lad, poor lad!” my father cried blurting the sentiment as he had -been a bairn. -</p> -<p> -How we tossed a coin to decide which should be the first to fire, and -Borland had won the toss, and gone to the other end of our twenty paces -with vulgar menaces and “Spoiled Horn” the sweetest of his epithets. -</p> -<p> -“Poor lad! he but tried to bluster down the inward voice that told him the -folly o't,” said father. -</p> -<p> -And how Borland had fired first. The air was damp. The sound was like a -slamming door. -</p> -<p> -“The door of hope shut up for him, poor dear,” cried father. -</p> -<p> -And how he missed me in his trepidation that made his hand that held the -pistol so tremble that I saw the muzzle quiver even at twenty paces. -</p> -<p> -“And then you shot him deliberately I M cried my father. -</p> -<p> -“No, no,” I cried at that, indignant. “I aimed without a glance along the -barrel: the flint flashed; the prime missed fire, and I was not sorry, but -Borland cried 'Spoiled Horn' braggingly, and I cocked again as fast as I -could, and blindly jerked the trigger. I never thought of striking him. He -fell with one loud cry among the rushes.” - </p> -<p> -“Murder, by God!” cried my father, and he relapsed into a chair, his body -all convulsed with horror. -</p> -<p> -I had told him all this as if I had been in a delirium, or as if it were a -tale out of a book, and it was only when I saw him writhing in his chair -and the tassel shaking over his eyes, I minded that the murderer was me. I -made for the door; up rose my father quickly and asked me what I meant to -do. -</p> -<p> -I confessed I neither knew nor cared. -</p> -<p> -“You must thole your assize,” said he, and just as he said it the clatter -of the mare's hoofs sounded on the causey of the yard, and he must have -minded suddenly for what object she was saddled there. -</p> -<p> -“No, no,” said he, “you must flee the country. What right have you to make -it any worse for her?” - </p> -<p> -“I have not a crown in my pocket,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“And I have less,” he answered quickly. “Where are you going? No, no, -don't tell me that; I'm not to know. There's the mare saddled, I meant -Sandy to send the doctor from the Mearns, but you can do that. Bid him -come here as fast as he can.” - </p> -<p> -“And must I come back with the mare?” I asked, reckless what he might say -to that, though my life depended on it. -</p> -<p> -“For the sake of your mother,” he answered, “I would rather never set eyes -on you or the beast again; she's the last transaction between us, Paul -Greig.” And then he burst in tears, with his arms about my neck. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/067.jpg" alt="067 (146K)" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -Ten minutes later I was on the mare, and galloping, for all her ailing -leg, from Hazel Den as if it were my own loweing conscience. I roused Dr. -Clews at the Mearns, and gave him my father's message. “Man,” said he, -holding his chamber light up to my face, “man, ye're as gash as a ghaist -yersel'.” - </p> -<p> -“I may well be that,” said I, and off I set, with some of Uncle Andy's old -experience in my mind, upon a ride across broad Scotland. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER VIII -</h2> -<h3> -I RIDE BY NIGHT ACROSS SCOTLAND, AND MEET A MARINER WITH A GLEED EYE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>hat night was like the day, with a full moon shining. The next afternoon -I rode into Borrowstounness, my horse done out and myself sore from head -to heel; and never in all my life have I seen a place with a more -unwelcome aspect, for the streets were over the hoof in mud; the natives -directed me in an accent like a tinker's whine; the Firth of Forth was -wrapped in a haar or fog that too closely put me in mind of my prospects. -But I had no right to be too particular, and in the course of an hour I -had sold the mare for five pounds to a man of much Christian profession, -who would not give a farthing more on the plea that she was likely stolen. -</p> -<p> -The five pounds and the clothes I stood in were my fortune: it did not -seem very much, if it was to take me out of the reach of the long arm of -the doomster; and thinking of the doomster I minded of the mole upon my -brow, that was the most kenspeckle thing about me in the event of a -description going about the country, so the first thing I bought with my -fortune was a pair of scissors. Going into a pend close in one of the -vennels beside the quay, I clipped off the hair upon the mole and felt a -little safer. I was coming out of the close, pouching the scissors, when a -man of sea-going aspect, with high boots and a tarpaulin hat, stumbled -against me and damned my awkwardness. -</p> -<p> -“You filthy hog,” said I, exasperated at such manners, for he was himself -to blame for the encounter; “how dare you speak to me like that?” He was a -man of the middle height, sturdy on his bowed legs in spite of the drink -obvious in his face and speech, and he had a roving gleed black eye. I had -never clapped gaze on him in all my life before. -</p> -<p> -“Is that the way ye speak to Dan Risk, ye swab?” said he, ludicrously -affecting a dignity that ill suited with his hiccough. “What's the good of -me being a skipper if every linen-draper out of Fife can cut into my -quarter on my own deck?” - </p> -<p> -“This is no' your quarter-deck, man, if ye were sober enough to ken it,” - said I; “and I'm no linen-draper from Fife or anywhere else.” - </p> -<p> -And then the brute, with his hands thrust to the depth of his pockets, -staggered me as if he had done it with a blow of his fist. -</p> -<p> -“No,” said he, with a very cunning tone, “ye're no linen-draper perhaps, -but—ye're maybe no sae decent a man, young Greig.” - </p> -<p> -It was impossible for me to conceal even from this tipsy rogue my -astonishment and alarm at this. It seemed to me the devil himself must be -leagued against me in the cause of justice. A cold sweat came on my face -and the palms of my hands. I opened my mouth and meant to give him the lie -but I found I dare not do so in the presence of what seemed a miracle of -heaven. -</p> -<p> -“How do you ken my name's Greig?” I asked at the last. -</p> -<p> -“Fine that,” he made answer, with a grin; “and there's mony an odd thing -else I ken.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, it's no matter,” said I, preparing to quit him, but in great fear -of what the upshot might be; “I'm for off, anyway.” - </p> -<p> -By this time it was obvious that he was not so drunk as I thought him at -first, and that in temper and tact he was my match even with the glass in -him. “Do ye ken what I would be doing if I was you?” said he seemingly -determined not to let me depart like that, for he took a step or two after -me. -</p> -<p> -I made no reply, but quickened my pace and after me he came, lurching and -catching at my arm; and I mind to this day the roll of him gave me the -impression of a crab. -</p> -<p> -“If it's money ye want-” I said at the end of my patience. -</p> -<p> -“Curse your money!” he cried, pretending to spit the insult from his -mouth. “Curse your money; but if I was you, and a weel-kent skipper like -Dan Risk—like Dan Risk of the <i>Seven Sisters</i>—made up to -me out of a redeeculous good nature and nothing else, I would gladly go -and splice the rope with him in the nearest ken.” - </p> -<p> -“Go and drink with yourself, man,” I cried; “there's the money for a -chappin of ate, and I'll forego my share of it.” - </p> -<p> -I could have done nothing better calculated to infuriate him. As I held -out the coin on the palm of my hand he struck it up with an oath and it -rolled into the syver. His face flamed till the neck of him seemed a round -of seasoned beef. -</p> -<p> -“By the Rock o' Bass!” he roared, “I would clap ye in jyle for less than -your lousy groat.” - </p> -<p> -Ah, then, it was in vain I had put the breadth of Scotland between me and -that corpse among the rushes: my heart struggled a moment, and sank as if -it had been drowned in bilge. I turned on the man what must have been a -gallows face, and he laughed, and, gaining his drunken good nature again -he hooked me by the arm, and before my senses were my own again he was -leading me down the street and to the harbour. I had never a word to say. -</p> -<p> -The port, as I tell, was swathed in the haar of the east, out of which -tall masts rose dim like phantom spears; the clumsy tarred bulwarks loomed -like walls along the quay, and the neighbourhood was noisy with voices -that seemed unnatural coming out of the haze. Mariners were hanging about -the sheds, and a low tavern belched others out to keep them company. Risk -made for the tavern, and at that I baulked. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, come on!” said he. “If I'm no' mistaken Dan Risk's the very man ye're -in the need of. You're wanting out of Scotland, are ye no'?” - </p> -<p> -“More than that; I'm wanting out of myself,” said I, but that seemed -beyond him. -</p> -<p> -“Come in anyway, and we'll talk it over.” - </p> -<p> -That he might help me out of the country seemed possible if he was not, as -I feared at first, some agent of the law and merely playing with me, so I -entered the tavern with him. -</p> -<p> -“Two gills to the coffin-room, Mrs. Clerihew,” he cried to the woman in -the kitchen. “And slippy aboot it, if ye please, for my mate here's been -drinking buttermilk all his life, and ye can tell't in his face.” - </p> -<p> -“I would rather have some meat,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Humph!” quo' he, looking at my breeches. “A lang ride!” He ordered the -food at my mentioning, and made no fuss about drinking my share of the -spirits as well as his own, while I ate with a hunger that was soon -appeased, for my eye, as the saying goes, was iller to satisfy than my -appetite. -</p> -<p> -He sat on the other side of the table in the little room that doubtless -fairly deserved the name it got of coffin, for many a man, I'm thinking, -was buried there in his evil habits; and I wondered what was to be next. -</p> -<p> -“To come to the bit,” said the at last, looking hard into the bottom of -his tankard in a way that was a plain invitation to buy more for him. “To -come to the bit, you're wanting out of the country?” - </p> -<p> -“It's true,” said I; “but how do you know? And how do you know my name, -for I never saw you to my knowledge in all my life before?” - </p> -<p> -“So much the worse for you; I'm rale weel liked by them that kens me. What -would ye give for a passage to Nova Scotia?” - </p> -<p> -“It's a long way,” said I, beginning to see a little clearer. -</p> -<p> -“Ay,” said he, “but I've seen a gey lang rope too, and a man danglin' at -the end of it.” - </p> -<p> -Again my face betrayed me. I made no answer. -</p> -<p> -“I ken all aboot it,” he went on. “Your name's Greig; ye're from a place -called the Hazel Den at the other side o' the country; ye've been sailing -wi' a stiff breeze on the quarter all night, and the clime o' auld -Scotland's one that doesna suit your health, eh? What's the amount?” said -he, and he looked towards my pocket “Could we no' mak' it halfers?” - </p> -<p> -“Five pounds,” said I, and at that he looked strangely dashed. -</p> -<p> -“Five pounds,” he repeated incredulously. “It seems to have been hardly -worth the while.” And then his face changed, as if a new thought had -struck him. He leaned over the table and whispered with the infernal tone -of a confederate, “Doused his glim, eh?” winking with his hale eye, so -that I could not but shiver at him, as at the touch of slime. -</p> -<p> -“I don't understand,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Do ye no'?” said he, with a sneer; “for a Greig ye're mighty slow in the -uptak'. The plain English o' that, then, is that ye've killed a man. A -trifle like that ance happened to a Greig afore.” - </p> -<p> -“What's your name?” I demanded. -</p> -<p> -“Am I no tellin' ye?” said he shortly. “It's just Daniel Risk; and where -could you get a better? Perhaps ye were thinkin' aboot swappin' names wi' -me; and by the Bass, it's Dan's family name would suit very weel your -present position,” and the scoundrel laughed at his own humour. -</p> -<p> -“I asked because I was frightened it might be Mahoun,” said I. “It seems -gey hard to have ridden through mire for a night and a day, and land where -ye started from at the beginning. And how do ye ken all that?” - </p> -<p> -“Oh!” he said, “kennin's my trade, if ye want to know. And whatever way I -ken, ye needna think I'm the fellow to make much of a sang aboot it. Still -and on, the thing's frowned doon on in this country, though in places I've -been it would be coonted to your credit. I'll take anither gill; and if ye -ask me, I would drench the butter-milk wi' something o' the same, for the -look o' ye sittin' there's enough to gie me the waterbrash. Mrs. Clerihew—here!” - He rapped loudly on the table, and the drink coming in I was compelled -again to see him soak himself at my expense. He reverted to my passage -from the country, and “Five pounds is little enough for it,” said he; “but -ye might be eking it oot by partly working your passage.” - </p> -<p> -“I didn't say I was going either to Nova Scotia or with you,” said I, “and -I think I could make a better bargain elsewhere.” - </p> -<p> -“So could I, maybe,” said he, fuming of spirits till I felt sick. “And -it's time I was doin' something for the good of my country.” With that he -rose to his feet with a look of great moral resolution, and made as if for -the door, but by this time I understood him better. -</p> -<p> -“Sit down, ye muckle hash!” said I, and I stood over him with a most -threatening aspect. -</p> -<p> -“By the Lord!” said he, “that's a Greig anyway!” - </p> -<p> -“Ay!” said I. “ye seem to ken the breed. Can I get another vessel abroad -besides yours?” - </p> -<p> -“Ye can not,” said he, with a promptness I expected, “unless ye wait on -the <i>Sea Pyat</i>. She leaves for Jamaica next Thursday; and there's no' -a spark of the Christian in the skipper o' her, one Macallum from -Greenock.” - </p> -<p> -For the space of ten minutes I pondered over the situation. Undoubtedly I -was in a hole. This brute had me in his power so long as my feet were on -Scottish land, and he knew it. At sea he might have me in his power too, -but against that there was one precaution I could take, and I made up my -mind. -</p> -<p> -“I'll give you four pounds—half at leaving the quay and the other -half when ye land me.” - </p> -<p> -“My conscience wadna' aloo me,” protested the rogue; but the greed was in -his face, and at last he struck my thumb on the bargain, and when he did -that I think I felt as much remorse at the transaction as at the crime -from whose punishment I fled. -</p> -<p> -“Now,” said I, “tell me how you knew me and heard about—about—” - </p> -<p> -“About what?” said he, with an affected surprise. “Let me tell ye this, -Mr. Greig, or whatever your name may be, that Dan Risk is too much of the -gentleman to have any recollection of any unpleasantness ye may mention, -now that he has made the bargain wi' ye. I ken naethin' aboot ye, if ye -please: whether your name's Greig or Mackay or Habbie Henderson, it's new -to me, only ye're a likely lad for a purser's berth in the <i>Seven -Sisters.</i>” And refusing to say another word on the topic that so -interested me, he took me down to the ship's side, where I found the <i>Seven -Sisters</i> was a brigantine out of Hull, sadly in the want of tar upon -her timbers and her mainmast so decayed and worm-eaten that it sounded -boss when I struck it with my knuckles in the by-going. -</p> -<p> -Risk saw me doing it. He gave an ugly smile. -</p> -<p> -“What do ye think o' her? said he, showing me down the companion. -</p> -<p> -“Mighty little,” I told him straight. “I'm from the moors,” said I, “but -I've had my feet on a sloop of Ayr before now; and by the look of this -craft I would say she has been beeking in the sun idle till she rotted -down to the garboard strake.” - </p> -<p> -He gave his gleed eye a turn and vented some appalling oaths, and wound up -with the insult I might expect—namely, that drowning was not my -portion. -</p> -<p> -“There was some brag a little ago of your being a gentleman,” said I, -convinced that this blackguard was to be treated to his own fare if he was -to be got on with at all. “There's not much of a gentleman in the like of -that.” - </p> -<p> -At this he was taken aback. “Well,” said he, “don't you cross my temper; -if my temper's crossed it's gey hard to keep up gentility. The ship's -sound enough, or she wouldn't be half a dizen times round the Horn and as -weel kent in Halifax as one o' their ain dories. She's guid enough for -your—for our business, if ye please, Mr. Greig; and here's my mate -Murchison.” - </p> -<p> -Another tarry-breeks of no more attractive aspect came down the companion. -</p> -<p> -“Here's a new hand for ye,” said the skipper humorously. -</p> -<p> -The mate looked me up and down with some contempt from his own height of -little more than five feet four, and peeled an oilskin coat off him. I was -clad myself in a good green coat and breeches with fine wool rig-and-fur -hose, and the buckled red shoon and the cock of my hat I daresay gave me -the look of some importance in tarry-breeks' eyes. At any rate, he did not -take Risk's word for my identity, but at last touched his hat with awkward -fingers after relinquishing his look of contempt. -</p> -<p> -“Mr. Jamieson?” said he questioningly, and the skipper by this time was -searching in a locker for a bottle of rum he said he had there for the -signing of agreements. “Mr. Jamieson,” said the mate, “I'm glad to see ye. -The money's no; enough for the job, and that's letting ye know. It's all -right for Dan here wi' neither wife nor family, but—” - </p> -<p> -“What's that, ye idiot?” cried Risk turning about in alarm. “Do ye tak' -this callan for the owner? I tell't ye he was a new hand.” - </p> -<p> -“A hand!” repeated Murchison, aback and dubious. -</p> -<p> -“Jist that; he's the purser.” - </p> -<p> -Murchison laughed. “That's a new ornament on the auld randy; he'll be to -keep his keekers on the manifest, like?” said he as one who cracks a good -joke. But still and on he scanned me with a suspicious eye, and it was not -till Risk had taken him aside later in the day and seemingly explained, -that he was ready to meet me with equanimity. By that time I had paid the -skipper his two guineas, for the last of his crew was on board, every man -Jack of them as full as the Baltic, and staggering at the coamings of the -hatches not yet down, until I thought half of them would finally land in -the hold. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER IX -</h2> -<h3> -WHEREIN THE “SEVEN SISTERS” ACTS STRANGELY, AND I SIT WAITING FOR THE -MANACLES -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>n air of westerly wind had risen after meridian and the haar was gone, so -that when I stood at the break of the poop as the brigantine crept into -the channel and flung out billows of canvas while her drunken seamen -quarrelled and bawled high on the spars, I saw, as I imagined, the last of -Scotland in a pleasant evening glow. My heart sank. It was not a departure -like this I had many a time anticipated when I listened to Uncle Andys -tales; here was I with blood on my hands and a guinea to start my life in -a foreign country; that was not the worst of it either, for far more -distress was in my mind at the reflection that I travelled with a man who -was in my secret. At first I was afraid to go near him once our ropes were -off the pawls, and I, as it were, was altogether his, but to my surprise -there could be no pleasanter man than Risk when he had the wash of water -under his rotten barque. He was not only a better-mannered man to myself, -but he became, in half an hour of the Firth breeze, as sober as a judge. -But for the roving gleed eye, and what I had seen of him on shore, Captain -Dan Risk might have passed for a model of all the virtues. He called me -Mr. Greig and once or twice (but I stopped that) Young Hazel Den, with no -irony in the appellation, and he was at pains to make his mate see that I -was one to be treated with some respect, proffering me at our first meal -together (for I was to eat in the cuddy,) the first of everything on the -table, and even making some excuses for the roughness of the viands. And I -could see that whatever his qualities of heart might be, he was a good -seaman, a thing to be told in ten minutes by a skipper's step on a deck -and his grip of the rail, and his word of command. Those drunken barnacles -of his seemed to be men with the stuff of manly deeds in them, when at his -word they dashed aloft among the canvas canopy to fist the bulging sail -and haul on clew or gasket, or when they clung on greasy ropes and at a -gesture of his hand heaved cheerily with that “yo-ho” that is the chant of -all the oceans where keels run. -</p> -<p> -Murchison was a saturnine, silent man, from whom little was to be got of -edification. The crew numbered eight men, one of them a black deaf mute, -with the name of Antonio Ferdinando, who cooked in a galley little larger -than the Hazel Den kennel. It was apparent that no two of them had ever -met before, such a career of flux and change is the seaman's, and except -one of them, a fellow Horn, who was foremast man, a more villainous gang I -never set eyes on before or since. If Risk had raked the ports of Scotland -with a fine bone comb for vermin, he could not have brought together a -more unpleasant-looking crew. No more than two of them brought a bag on -board, and so ragged was their appearance that I felt ashamed to air my -own good clothes on the same deck with them. -</p> -<p> -Fortunately it seemed I had nothing to do with them nor they with me; all -that was ordered for the eking out of my passage, as Risk had said, was to -copy the manifest, and I had no sooner set to that than I discerned it was -a gowk's job just given me to keep me in employ in the cabin. Whatever his -reason, the man did not want me about his deck. I saw that in an interlude -in my writing, when I came up from his airless den to learn what progress -old rotten-beams made under all her canvas. -</p> -<p> -It had declined to a mere handful of wind, and the vessel scarcely moved, -seemed indeed steadfast among the sea-birds that swooped and wheeled and -cried around her. I saw the sun just drop among blood-red clouds over -Stirling, and on the shore of Fife its pleasant glow. The sea swung flat -and oily, running to its ebb, and lapping discernibly upon a recluse -promontory of land with a stronghold on it. -</p> -<p> -“What do you call yon, Horn?” I said to the seaman I have before -mentioned, who leaned upon the taffrail and watched the vessel's greasy -wake, and I pointed to the gloomy buildings on the shore. -</p> -<p> -“Blackness Castle,” said he, and he had time to tell no more, for the -skipper bawled upon him for a shirking dog, and ordered the flemishing of -some ropes loose upon the forward deck. Nor was I exempt from his zeal for -the industry of other folks for he came up to me with a suspicious look, -as if he feared I had been hearing news from his foremast man, and “How -goes the manifest, Mr. Greig?” says he. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, brawly, brawly!” said I, determined to begin with Captain Daniel Risk -as I meant to end. -</p> -<p> -He grew purple, but restrained himself with an effort. “This is not an Ayr -sloop, Mr. Greig,” said he; “and when orders go on the <i>Seven Sisters</i> -I like to see them implemented. You must understand that there's a -pressing need for your clerking, or I would not be so soon putting you at -it.” - </p> -<p> -“At this rate of sailing,” says I, “I'll have time to copy some hundred -manifests between here and Nova Scotia.” - </p> -<p> -“Perhaps you'll permit me to be the best judge of that,” he replied in the -English he ever assumed with his dignity, and seeing there was no more for -it, I went back to my quill. -</p> -<p> -It was little wonder, in all the circumstances, that I fell asleep over my -task with my head upon the cabin table whereon I wrote, and it was still -early in the night when I crawled into the narrow bunk that the skipper -had earlier indicated as mine. -</p> -<p> -Weariness mastered my body, but my mind still roamed; the bunk became a -coffin quicklimed, and the murderer of David Borland lying in it; the -laverock cried across Earn Water and the moors of Renfrew with the voice -of Daniel Risk. And yet the strange thing was that I knew I slept and -dreamed, and more than once I made effort, and dragged myself into -wakefulness from the horrors of my nightmare. At these times there was -nothing to hear but the plop of little waves against the side of the ship, -a tread on deck, and the call of the watch. -</p> -<p> -I had fallen into a sleep more profound than any that had yet blessed my -hard couch, when I was suddenly wakened by a busy clatter on the deck, the -shriek of ill-greased davits, the squeak of blocks, and the fall of a -small-boat into the water. Another odd sound puzzled me: but for the -probability that we were out over Bass I could have sworn it was the -murmur of a stream running upon a gravelled shore. A stream—heavens! -There could be no doubt about it now; we were somewhere close in shore, -and the <i>Seven Sisters</i> was lying to. The brigantine stopped in her -voyage where no stoppage should be; a small boat plying to land in the -middle of the night; come! here was something out of the ordinary, surely, -on a vessel seaward bound. I had dreamt of the gallows and of Dan Risk as -an informer. Was it a wonder that there should flash into my mind the -conviction of my betrayal? What was more likely than that the skipper, -secure of my brace of guineas, was selling me to the garrison of -Blackness? -</p> -<p> -I clad myself hurriedly and crept cautiously up the companion ladder, and -found myself in overwhelming darkness, only made the more appalling and -strange because the vessel's lights were all extinguished. Silence large -and brooding lay upon the <i>Seven Sisters</i> as she lay in that -obscuring haar that had fallen again; she might be Charon's craft pausing -mid-way on the cursed stream, and waiting for the ferry cry upon the shore -of Time. We were still in the estuary or firth, to judge by the bickering -burn and the odors off-shore, above all the odour of rotting brake; and we -rode at anchor, for her bows were up-water to the wind and tide, and above -me, in the darkness, I could hear the idle sails faintly flapping in the -breeze and the reef-points all tap-tapping. I seemed to have the deck -alone, but for one figure at the stern; I went back, and found that it was -Horn. -</p> -<p> -“Where are we?” I asked, relieved to find there the only man I could trust -on board the ship. -</p> -<p> -“A little below Blackness,” said he shortly with a dissatisfied tone. -</p> -<p> -“I did not know we were to stop here,” said I, wondering if he knew that I -was doomed. -</p> -<p> -“Neither did I,” said he, peering into the void of night. “And whit's -mair, I wish I could guess the reason o' oor stopping. The skipper's been -ashore mair nor ance wi' the lang-boat forward there, and I'm sent back -here to keep an e'e on lord kens what except it be yersel'.” - </p> -<p> -“Are ye indeed?” said I, exceedingly vexed. “Then I ken too well, Horn, -the reason for the stoppage. You are to keep your eye on a man who's being -bargained for with the hangman.” - </p> -<p> -“I would rather ken naithin' about that,” said he, “and onyway I think -ye're mistaken. Here they're comin' back again.” - </p> -<p> -Two or three small boats were coming down on us out of the darkness; not -that I could see them, but that I heard their oars in muffled rowlocks. -</p> -<p> -“If they want me,” said I sorrowfully, “they can find me down below,” and -back I went and sat me in the cabin, prepared for the manacles. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER X -</h2> -<h3> -THE STRUGGLE IN THE CABIN, AND AN EERIE SOUND OF RUNNING WATER -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he place stank with bilge and the odour of an ill-trimmed lamp smoking -from a beam; the fragments of the skipper's supper were on the table, with -a broken quadrant; rats scurried and squealed in the bulkheads, and one -stared at me from an open locker, where lay a rum-bottle, while beetles -and slaters travelled along the timbers. But these things compelled my -attention less than the skylights that were masked internally by pieces of -canvas nailed roughly on them. They were not so earlier in the evening; it -must have been done after I had gone to sleep, and what could be the -object? That puzzled me extremely, for it must have been the same hand -that had extinguished all the deck and mast lights, and though black was -my crime darkness was unnecessary to my betrayal. -</p> -<p> -I waited with a heart like lead. -</p> -<p> -I heard the boats swung up on the davits, the squeak of the falls, the -tread of the seamen, the voice of Risk in an unusually low tone. In the -bows in a little I heard the windlass click and the chains rasp in the -hawse-holes; we were lifting the anchor. -</p> -<p> -For a moment hope possessed me. If we were weighing anchor then my arrest -was not imminent at least; but that consolation lasted briefly when I -thought of the numerous alternatives to imprisonment in Blackness. -</p> -<p> -We were under weigh again; there was a heel to port, and a more rapid plop -of the waters along the carvel planks. And then Risk and his mate came -down. -</p> -<p> -I have seldom seen a man more dashed than the skipper when he saw me -sitting waiting on him, clothed and silent. His face grew livid; round he -turned to Murchison and hurried him with oaths to come and clap eyes on -this sea-clerk. I looked for the officer behind them, but they were alone, -and at that I thought more cheerfully I might have been mistaken about the -night's curious proceedings. -</p> -<p> -“Anything wrang?” said Risk, affecting nonchalance now that his spate of -oaths was by, and he pulled the rum out of the locker and helped himself -and his mate to a swingeing caulker. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, nothing at all,” said I, “at least nothing that I know of, Captain -Risk. And are we—are we—at Halifax already?” - </p> -<p> -“What do you mean?” said he. And then he looked at me closely, put out the -hand unoccupied by his glass and ran an insolent dirty finger over my -new-clipped mole. “Greig, Greig,” said he, “Greig to a hair! I would have -the wee shears to that again, for its growin'.” - </p> -<p> -“You're a very noticing man,” said I, striking down his hand no way -gently, and remembering that he had seen my scissors when I emerged from -the Borrowstouness close after my own barbering. -</p> -<p> -“I'm all that,” he replied, with a laugh, and all the time Murchison, the -mate, sat mopping his greasy face with a rag, as one after hard work, and -looked on us with wonder at what we meant. “I'm all that,” he replied, -“the hair aff the mole and the horse-hair on your creased breeches wad hae -tauld ony ane that ye had ridden in a hurry and clipped in a fricht o' -discovery.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, oh!” I cried, “and that's what goes to the makin' o' a Mahoun!” - </p> -<p> -“Jist that,” said he, throwing himself on a seat with an easy indifference -meant to conceal his vanity. “Jist observation and a knack o' puttin' twa -and twa thegether. Did ye think the skipper o' the <i>Seven Sisters</i> -was fleein' over Scotland at the tail o' your horse?” - </p> -<p> -“The Greig mole's weel kent, surely,” said I, astonished and chagrined. “I -jalouse it's notorious through my Uncle Andy?” - </p> -<p> -Risk laughed at that. “Oh, ay!” said he, “when Andy Greig girned at ye it -was ill to miss seein' his mole. Man, ye might as well wear your name on -the front o' your hat as gae aboot wi' a mole like that—and—and -that pair o' shoes.” - </p> -<p> -The blood ran to my face at this further revelation of his astuteness. It -seemed, then, I carried my identity head and foot, and it was no wonder a -halfeyed man like Risk should so easily discover me. I looked down at my -feet, and sure enough, when I thought of it now, it would have been a -stupid man who, having seen these kenspeckle shoes once, would ever forget -them. -</p> -<p> -“My uncle seems to have given me good introductions,” said I. “They struck -mysel' as rather dandy for a ship,” broke in the mate, at last coming on -something he could understand. -</p> -<p> -“And did <i>you</i> know Andy Greig, too?” said I. “Andy Greig,” he -replied. “Not me!” - </p> -<p> -“Then, by God, ye hinna sailed muckle aboot the warld!” said the skipper. -“I hae seen thae shoes in the four quarters and aye in a good -companionship.” - </p> -<p> -“They appear yet to retain that virtue,” said I, unable to resist the -irony. “And, by the way, Captain Risk, now that we have discussed the -shoes and my mole, what have we been waiting for at Blackness?” - </p> -<p> -His face grew black with annoyance. -</p> -<p> -“What's that to you?” he cried. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, I don't know,” I answered indifferently. “I thought that now ye had -got the best part o' your passage money ye might hae been thinking to do -something for your country again. They tell me it's a jail in there, and -it might suggest itself to you as providing a good opportunity for getting -rid of a very indifferent purser.” - </p> -<p> -It is one thing I can remember to the man's credit that this innuendo of -treachery seemed to make him frantic. He dashed the rum-glass at his feet -and struck at me with a fist like a jigot of mutton, and I had barely time -to step back and counter. He threw himself at me as he had been a cat; I -closed and flung my arms about him with a wrestler's grip, and bent him -back upon the table edge, where I might have broken his spine but for -Murchison's interference. The mate called loudly for assistance; footsteps -pounded on the cuddy-stair, and down came Horn. Between them they drew us -apart, and while Murchison clung to his captain, and plied him into -quietness with a fresh glass of grog, Horn thrust me not unkindly out into -the night, and with no unwillingness on my part. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/091.jpg" alt="091" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -It was the hour of dawn, and the haar was gone. -</p> -<p> -There was something in that chill grey monotone of sky and sea that filled -me with a very passion of melancholy. The wind had risen, and the billows -ran frothing from the east; enormous clouds hung over the land behind us, -so that it seemed to roll with smoke from the eternal fires. Out from that -reeking pit of my remorse—that lost Scotland where now perhaps there -still lay lying among the rushes, with the pees-weep's cry above it, the -thing from which I flew, our ship went fast, blown upon the frothy -billows, like a ponderous bird, leaving a wake of hissing bubbling brine, -flying, as it seemed, to a world of less imminent danger, yet unalluring -still. -</p> -<p> -I looked aloft at the straining spars; they seemed to prick the clouds -between the swelling sails; the ropes and shrouds stretched infinitely -into a region very grey and chill. Oh, the pallor! oh, the cold and -heartless spirit of the sea in that first dawning morn! -</p> -<p> -“It's like to be a good day,” said Horn, breaking in upon my silence, and -turning to him I saw his face exceeding hollow and wan. The watch lay -forward, all but a lad who seemed half-dozing at the helm; Risk and his -mate had lapsed to silence in the cuddy. -</p> -<p> -“You're no frien', seemingly, o' the pair below!” said Horn again, -whispering, and with a glance across his shoulder at the helm. -</p> -<p> -“It did not look as if I were, a minute or two ago,” said I. “Yon's a -scoundrel, and yet I did him an injustice when I thought he meant to sell -me.” - </p> -<p> -“I never sailed with a more cheat-the-widdy crew since I followed the -sea,” said Horn, “and whether it's the one way or the other, sold ye are.” - </p> -<p> -“Eh?” said I, uncomprehending. -</p> -<p> -He looked again at the helm, and moved over to a water-breaker further -forward, obviously meaning that I should follow. He drew a drink of water -for himself, drank slowly, but seemed not to be much in the need for it -from the little he took, but he had got out of ear-shot of the man -steering. -</p> -<p> -“You and me's the gulls this time, Mr. Greig,” said he, whispering. “This -is a doomed ship.” - </p> -<p> -“I thought as much from her rotten spars,” I answered. “So long as she -takes me to Nova Scotia I care little what happens to her.” - </p> -<p> -“It's a long way to Halifax,” said he. “I wish I could be sure we were -likely even to have Land's End on our starboard before waur happens. Will -ye step this way, Mr. Greig?” and he cautiously led the way forward. There -was a look-out humming a stave of song somewhere in the bows, and two men -stretched among the chains, otherwise that part of the ship was all our -own. We went down the fo'c'sle scuttle quietly, and I found myself among -the carpenter's stores, in darkness, divided by a bulkhead door from the -quarters of the sleeping men. Rats were scurrying among the timbers and -squealing till Horn stamped lightly with his feet and secured stillness. -</p> -<p> -“Listen!” said he. -</p> -<p> -I could hear nothing but the heavy breathing of a seaman within, and the -wash of water against the ship's sides. -</p> -<p> -“Well?” I queried, wondering. -</p> -<p> -“Put your lug here,” said he, indicating a beam that was dimly revealed by -the light from the lamp swinging in the fo'c'sle. I did so, and heard -water running as from a pipe somewhere in the bowels of the vessel. -</p> -<p> -“What's that?” I asked. -</p> -<p> -“That's all,” said he and led me aft again. -</p> -<p> -The dawn by now had spread over half the heavens; behind us the mouth of -the Firth gulped enormous clouds, and the fringe of Fife was as flat as a -bannock; before us the sea spread chill, leaden, all unlovely. “My -sorrow!” says I, “if this is travelling, give me the high-roads and the -hot noon.” - </p> -<p> -Horn's face seemed more hollow and dark than ever in the wan morning. I -waited his explanation. “I think ye said Halifax, Mr. Greig?” said he. “I -signed on, mysel', for the same port, but you and me's perhaps the only -ones on this ship that ever hoped to get there. God give me grace to get -foot on shore and Dan Risk will swing for this!” - </p> -<p> -Somebody sneezed behind us as Horn thus rashly expressed himself; we both -turned suddenly on the rail we had been leaning against, expecting that -this was the skipper, and though it was not Risk, it was one whose black -visage and gleaming teeth and rolling eyes gave me momentarily something -of a turn. -</p> -<p> -It was the cook Ferdinando. He had come up behind on his bare feet, and -out upon the sea he gazed with that odd eerie look of the deaf and dumb, -heedless of us, it seemed, as we had been dead portions of the ship's -fabric, seeing but the salt wave, the rim of rising sun, blood-red upon -the horizon, communing with an old familiar. -</p> -<p> -“A cauld momin', cook,” said Horn, like one who tests a humbug pretending -to be dumb, but Ferdinando heard him not. -</p> -<p> -“It might have been a man wi' all his faculties,” said the seaman -whispering, “and it's time we werena seen thegether. I'll tell ye later -on.” - </p> -<p> -With that we separated, he to some trivial duty of his office, I, with a -mind all disturbed, back to my berth to lie awake, tossing and speculating -on the meaning of Horn's mystery. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XI -</h2> -<h3> -THE SCUTTLED SHIP -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen I went on deck next morning there was something great ado. We were -out of sight of land, sailing large, as the old phrase went, on a brisk -quarter breeze with top-sails atrip, and the sky a vast fine open blue. -The crew were gathered at the poop, the pump was clanking in the midst of -them, and I saw they were taking spells at the cruellest labour a seaman -knows. -</p> -<p> -At first I was noway troubled at the spectacle; a leak was to be expected -in old rotten-beams, and I went forward with the heart of me not a pulse -the faster. -</p> -<p> -Risk was leaning over the poop-rail, humped up and his beard on his hands; -Murchison, a little apart, swept the horizon with a prospect-glass, and -the pump sent a great spate of bilge-water upon the deck. But for a man at -the tiller who kept the ship from yawing in the swell that swung below her -counter the <i>Seven Sisters</i> sailed at her sweet will; all the -interest of her company was in this stream of stinking water that she -retched into the scuppers. And yet I could not but be struck by the -half-hearted manner in which the seamen wrought; they were visibly -shirking; I saw it in the slack muscles, in the heedless eyes. -</p> -<p> -Risk rose and looked sourly at me as I went up. “Are ye for a job?” said -he. “It's more in your line perhaps than clerkin'.” - </p> -<p> -“What, at the pumps? Is the old randy geyzing already?” - </p> -<p> -“Like a washing-boyne,” said he. “Bear a hand like a good lad! we maun -keep her afloat at least till some other vessel heaves in sight.” - </p> -<p> -In the tone and look of the man there was something extraordinary. His -words were meant to suggest imminent peril, and yet his voice was shallow -as that of a burgh bellman crying an auction sale, and his eyes had more -interest in the horizon that his mate still searched with the -prospect-glass than in the spate of bilge that gulped upon the deck. -</p> -<p> -Bilge did I say? Heavens! it was bilge no more, but the pure sea-green -that answered to the clanking pump. It was no time for idle wonder at the -complacence of the skipper; I flew to the break and threw my strength into -the seaman's task. “Clank-click, clank-click”—the instrument worked -reluctantly as if the sucker moved in slime, and in a little the sweat -poured from me. -</p> -<p> -“How is she now, Campbell?” asked Risk, as the carpenter came on deck. -</p> -<p> -“Three feet in the hold,” said Campbell airily, like one that had an easy -conscience. -</p> -<p> -“Good lord, a foot already!” cried Risk, and then in a tone of sarcasm, -“Hearty, lads, hearty there! A little more Renfrewshire beef into it, Mr. -Greig, if you please.” - </p> -<p> -At that I ceased my exertion, stood back straight and looked at the faces -about me. There was only one man in the company who did not seem to be -amused at me, and that was Horn, who stood with folded arms, moodily eying -the open sea. -</p> -<p> -“You seem mighty joco about it,” I said to Risk, and I wonder to this day -at my blindness that never read the whole tale in these hurried events. -</p> -<p> -“I can afford to be,” he said quickly; “if I gang I gang wi' clean hands,” - and he spat into the seawater streaming from the pump where the port-watch -now were working with as much listlessness as the men they superseded. -</p> -<p> -To the taunt I made no reply, but moved after Horn who had gone forward -with his hands in his pockets. -</p> -<p> -“What does this mean, Horn?” I asked him. “Is the vessel in great danger?” - </p> -<p> -“I suppose she is,” said he bitterly, “but I have had nae experience o' -scuttled ships afore.” - </p> -<p> -“Scuttled!” cried I, astounded, only half grasping his meaning. -</p> -<p> -“Jist that,” said he. “The job's begun. It began last night in the run of -the vessel as I showed ye when ye put your ear to the beam. After I left -ye, I foun' half a dizen cords fastened to the pump stanchels; ane of them -I pulled and got a plug at the end of it; the ithers hae been comin' oot -since as it suited Dan Risk best, and the <i>Seven Ststers</i> is doomed -to die o' a dropsy this very day. Wasn't I the cursed idiot that ever -lipped drink in Clerihew's coffin-room!” - </p> -<p> -“If it was that,” said I, “why did you not cut the cords and spoil the -plot?” - </p> -<p> -“Cut the cords! Ye mean cut my ain throat; that's what wad happen if the -skipper guessed my knowledge o' his deevilry. And dae ye think a gallows -job o' this kind depends a'thegither on twa or three bits o' twine? Na, -na, this is a very business-like transaction, Mr. Greig, and I'll warrant -there has been naethin' left to chance. I wondered at them bein' sae -pernicketty about the sma' boats afore we sailed when the timbers o' the -ship hersel' were fair ganting. That big new boat and sails frae Kirkcaldy -was a gey odd thing in itsel' if I had been sober enough to think o't. I -suppose ye paid your passage, Mr. Greig? I can fancy a purser on the <i>Seven -Sisters</i> upon nae ither footin' and that made me dubious o' ye when I -first learned o' this hell's caper for Jamieson o' the Grange. If ye hadna -fought wi' the skipper I would hae coonted ye in wi' the rest.” - </p> -<p> -“He has two pounds of my money,” I answered; “at least I've saved the -other two if we fail to reach Halifax.” - </p> -<p> -At that he laughed softly again. -</p> -<p> -“It might be as well wi' Risk as wi' the conger,” said he, meaningly. “I'm -no' sae sure that you and me's meant to come oot o' this; that's what I -might tak' frae their leaving only the twa o' us aft when they were -puttin' the cargo aff there back at Blackness.” - </p> -<p> -“The cargo!” I repeated. -</p> -<p> -“Of course,” said Horn. “Ye fancied they were goin' to get rid o' ye -there, did ye? I'll alloo I thought that but a pretence on your pairt, and -no' very neatly done at that. Well, the smallest pairt but the maist -valuable o' the cargo shipped at Borrowstouness is still in Scotland; and -the underwriters 'll be to pay through the nose for what has never run sea -risks.” - </p> -<p> -At that a great light came to me. This was the reason for the masked cuddy -skylights, the utter darkness of the <i>Seven Sisters</i> while her boats -were plying to the shore; for this was I so closely kept at her ridiculous -manifest; the lists of lace and plate I had been fatuously copying were -lists of stuff no longer on the ship at all, but back in the possession of -the owner of the brigantine. -</p> -<p> -“You are an experienced seaman—?” - </p> -<p> -“I have had a vessel of my own,” broke in Horn, some vanity as well as -shame upon his countenance. -</p> -<p> -“Well, you are the more likely to know the best way out of this trap we -are in,” I went on. “For a certain reason I am not at all keen on it to go -back to Scotland, but I would sooner risk that than run in leash with a -scoundrel like this who's sinking his command, not to speak of hazarding -my unworthy life with a villainous gang. Is there any way out of it, -Horn?” - </p> -<p> -The seaman pondered, a dark frown upon his tanned forehead, where the -veins stood out in knots, betraying his perturbation. The wind whistled -faintly in the tops, the <i>Seven Sisters</i> plainly went by the head; -she had a slow response to her helm, and moved sluggishly. Still the pump -was clanking and we could hear the water streaming through the scupper -holes. Risk had joined his mate and was casting anxious eyes over the -waters. -</p> -<p> -“If we play the safty here, Mr. Greig,” said Horn, “there's a chance o' a -thwart for us when the <i>Seven Ststers</i> comes to her labour. That's -oor only prospect. At least they daurna murder us.” - </p> -<p> -“And what about the crew?” I asked. “Do you tell me there is not enough -honesty among them all to prevent a blackguardly scheme like this?” - </p> -<p> -“We're the only twa on this ship this morning wi' oor necks ootside tow, -for they're all men o' the free trade, and broken men at that,” said Horn -resolutely, and even in the midst of this looming disaster my private -horror rose within me. -</p> -<p> -“Ah!” said I, helpless to check the revelation, “speak for yourself, Mr. -Horn; it's the hangman I'm here fleeing from.” - </p> -<p> -He looked at me with quite a new countenance, clearly losing relish for -his company. -</p> -<p> -“Anything by-ordinar dirty?” he asked, and in my humility I did not have -the spirit to resent what that tone and query implied. -</p> -<p> -“Dirty enough,” said I, “the man's dead,” and Horn's face cleared. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, faith! is that all?” quo' he, “I was thinkin' it might be coinin'—beggin' -your pardon, Mr. Greig, or somethin' in the fancy way. But a gentleman's -quarrel ower the cartes or a wench—that's a different tale. I hate -homicide mysel' to tell the truth, but whiles I've had it in my heart, and -in a way o' speakin* Dan Risk this meenute has my gully-knife in his -ribs.” - </p> -<p> -As he spoke the vessel, mishandled, or a traitor to her helm, now that she -was all awash internally with water, yawed and staggered in the wind. The -sails shivered, the yards swung violently, appalling noises came from the -hold. At once the pumping ceased, and Risk's voice roared in the -confusion, ordering the launch of the Kirkcaldy boat. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XII -</h2> -<h3> -MAKES PLAIN THE DEEPEST VILLAINY OF RISK AND SETS ME ON A FRENCHMAN -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hen I come to write these affairs down after the lapse of years, I find -my memory but poorly retains the details of that terrific period between -the cry of Risk and the moment when Horn and I, abandoned on the doomed -vessel, watched the evening fall upon the long Kirkcaldy boat, her mast -stepped, but her sails down, hovering near us for the guarantee of our -eternal silence regarding the crime the men on her were there and then -committing. There is a space—it must have been brief, but I lived a -lifetime in it—whose impressions rest with me, blurred, but with the -general hue of agony. I can see the sun again sailing overhead in the -arching sky of blue; the enormous ocean, cruel, cold, spread out to the -line of the horizon; the flapping sails and drumming reef-points, the -streaming halliards and clew-garnets, the spray buffeting upon our hull -and spitting in our faces like an enemy; I hear the tumult of the seamen -hurrying vulgarly to save their wretched lives, the gluck of waters in the -bowels of the ship, the thud of cargo loose and drifting under decks. -</p> -<p> -But I see and hear it all as in a dream or play, and myself someway -standing only a spectator. -</p> -<p> -It seemed that Risk and his men put all their dependence on the long-boat -out of Kirkcaldy. She was partly decked at the bows like a Ballantrae -herring-skiff, beamy and commodious. They clustered round her like ants; -swung her out, and over she went, and the whole hellish plot lay revealed -in the fact that she was all found with equipment and provisions. -</p> -<p> -Horn and I made an effort to assist at her preparation; we were shoved -aside with frantic curses; we were beaten back by her oars when we sought -to enter her, and when she pushed off from the side of the <i>Seven -Sisters</i>, Dan Risk was so much the monster that he could jeer at our -perplexity. He sat at the tiller of her without a hat, his long hair, that -was turning lyart, blown by the wind about his black and mocking eyes. -</p> -<p> -“Head her for Halifax, Horn,” said he, “and ye'll get there by-and-by.” - </p> -<p> -“Did I ever do ye any harm, skipper?” cried the poor seaman, standing on -the gunwale, hanging to the shrouds, and his aspect hungry for life. -</p> -<p> -“Ye never got the chance, Port Glesca,” cried back Risk, hugging the -tiller of the Kirkcaldy boat under his arm. “I'll gie ye a guess— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -Come-a-riddle, come-a-riddle, come-a-rote-tote-tote— -</pre> -<p> -Oh to bleezes! I canna put a rhyme till't, but this is the sense o't—a -darkie's never deaf and dumb till he's deid. Eh! Antonio, ye rascal!” - </p> -<p> -He looked forward as he spoke and exchanged a villainous laugh with the -cook, his instrument, who had overheard us and betrayed. -</p> -<p> -“Ye would mak' me swing for it, would ye, John Horn, when ye get ashore? -That's what I would expect frae a keelie oot o' Clyde.” - </p> -<p> -It is hard to credit that man could be so vile as this, but of such stuff -was Daniel Risk. He was a fiend in the glory of his revenge upon the -seaman who had threatened him with the gallows; uplifted like a madman's, -his face, that was naturally sallow, burned lamp-red at his high -cheek-bones, his hale eye gloated, his free hand flourished as in an -exultation. His mate sat silent beside him on the stern-thwart, clearing -the sheets: the crew, who had out the sweeps to keep the boat's bows in -the wind, made an effort to laugh at his jocosities, but clearly longed to -be away from this tragedy. And all the time, I think, I stood beside the -weather bulwark, surrendered to the certainty of a speedy death, with the -lines of a ballad coming back again and again to my mind: -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -An' he shall lie in fathoms deep, -The star-fish ower his een shall creep. -An' an auld grey wife shall sit an' weep -In the hall o' Monaltrie. -</pre> -<p> -I thrust that ungodly rhyme from me each time that it arose, but in spite -of me at last it kept time to the lap of a wave of encroaching sea that -beat about my feet. -</p> -<p> -My silence—my seeming indifference—would seem to have touched -the heart that could not be affected by the entreaties of the seaman Horn. -At least Risk ceased his taunts at last, and cast a more friendly eye on -me. -</p> -<p> -“I'm saying, Greig,” he cried, “noo that I think o't, your Uncle Andy was -no bad hand at makin' a story. Ye've an ill tongue, but I'll thole that—astern, -lads, and tak' the purser aboard.” - </p> -<p> -The seamen set the boat about willingly enough, and she crept in to pick -me off the doomed ship. -</p> -<p> -At that my senses cleared like hill-well water. It was for but a second—praise -God! my instincts joyed in my reprieve; my hand never released the cleat -by which I steadied myself. I looked at Horn still upon the lower shrouds -and saw hope upon his countenance. -</p> -<p> -“Of course this man comes with me, Captain Risk?” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Not if he offered a thousand pounds,” cried Risk, “in ye come!” and -Murchison clawed at the shrouds with a boat-hook. Horn made to jump among -them and, with an oath, the mate thrust at him with the hook as with a -spear, striking him under the chin. He fell back upon the deck, bleeding -profusely and half insensible. -</p> -<p> -“You are a foul dog!” I cried to his assailant. “And I'll settle with you -for that!” - </p> -<p> -“Jump, ye fool, ye, jump!” cried Risk impatient. -</p> -<p> -“Let us look oot for oorselves, that's whit I say,” cried Murchison angry -at my threat, and prepared cheerfully to see me perish. “What for should -we risk oor necks with either o' them?” and he pushed off slightly with -his boat-hook. -</p> -<p> -The skipper turned, struck down the hook, and snarled upon him. “Shut up, -Murchison!” he cried. “I'm still the captain, if ye please, and I ken as -much about the clerk here as will keep his gab shut on any trifle we hae -dune.” - </p> -<p> -I looked upon the clean sea, and then at that huddle of scoundrels in the -Kirkcaldy boat, and then upon the seaman Horn coming back again to the -full consciousness of his impending fate. He gazed upon me with eyes -alarmed and pitiful, and at that I formed my resolution. -</p> -<p> -“I stick by Horn,” said I. “If he gets too, I'll go; if not I'll bide and -be drowned with an honest man.” - </p> -<p> -“Bide and be damned then! Ye've had your chance,” shouted Risk, letting -his boat fall off. “It's time we werena here.” And the halliards of his -main-sail were running in the blocks as soon as he said it. The boat swept -away rapidly, but not before I gave him a final touch of my irony. From my -pocket I took out my purse and threw it upon his lap. -</p> -<p> -“There's the ither twa, Risk,” I cried; “it's no' like the thing at all to -murder a harmless lad for less than what ye bargained for.” - </p> -<p> -He bawled back some reply I could not hear, and I turned about, to see -Horn making for the small boat on the starboard chocks. I followed with a -hope again wakened, only to share his lamentation when he found that two -of her planks had been wantonly sprung from their clinkers, rendering her -utterly useless. The two other boats were in a similar condition; Risk and -his confederates had been determined that no chance should be left of our -escape from the <i>Seven Sisters</i>. -</p> -<p> -It was late in the afternoon. The wind had softened somewhat; in the west -there were rising billowy clouds of silver and red, and half a mile away -the Kirkcaldy boat, impatient doubtless for the end of us, that final -assurance of safety, plied to windward with only her foresail set. We had -gone below in a despairing mind on the chance that the leakage might be -checked, but the holes were under water in the after peak, and in other -parts we could not come near. An inch-and-a-half auger, and a large -bung-borer, a gouge and chisel in the captain's private locker, told us -how the crime had been committed whereof we were the victims. -</p> -<p> -We had come on deck again, the pair of us, without the vaguest notion of -what was next to do, and—speaking for myself—convinced that -nothing could avert our hurrying fate. Horn told me later that he proposed -full half a score of plans for at least a prolongation of our time, but -that I paid no heed to them. That may be, for I know the ballad stanza -went in my head like a dirge, as I sat on a hatch with the last few days -of my history rolling out before my eyes. The dusk began to fall like a -veil, the wind declined still further. Horn feverishly hammered and -caulked at the largest of the boats, now and then throwing the tools from -him as in momentary realisations of the hopelessness of his toil that -finally left him in despair. -</p> -<p> -“It's no use, Mr. Greig,” he cried then, “they did the job ower weel,” and -he shook his fist at the Kirkcaldy boat. He checked the gesture suddenly -and gave an astonished cry. -</p> -<p> -“They're gone, Greig,” said he, now frantic. “They're gone. O God! they're -gone! I was sure they couldna hae the heart to leave us at the last,” and -as he spoke I chanced to look astern, and behold! a ship with all her -canvas full was swiftly bearing down the wind upon us. We had been so -intent upon our fate that we had never seen her! -</p> -<p> -I clambered up the shrouds of the main-mast, and cried upon the coming -vessel with some mad notion that she might fancy the <i>Seven Sisters</i> -derelict. But indeed that was not necessary. In a little she went round -into the wind, a long-boat filled with men came towards us, and twenty -minutes later we were on the deck of the <i>Roi Rouge</i>. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XIII -</h2> -<h3> -WHEREIN APPEARS A GENTLEMANLY CORSAIR AND A FRENCH-IRISH LORD -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hile it may be that the actual crisis of my manhood came to me on the day -I first put on my Uncle Andrew's shoes, the sense of it was mine only when -I met with Captain Thurot. I had put the past for ever behind me (as I -fancied) when I tore the verses of a moon-struck boy and cast them out -upon the washing-green at Hazel Den, but I was bound to foregather with -men like Thurot and his friends ere the scope and fashion of a man's world -were apparent to me. Whether his influence on my destiny in the long run -was good or bad I would be the last to say; he brought me into danger, but—in -a manner—he brought me good, though that perhaps was never in his -mind. -</p> -<p> -You must fancy this Thurot a great tall man, nearly half a foot exceeding -myself in stature, peak-bearded, straight as a lance, with plum-black eyes -and hair, polished in dress and manner to the rarest degree and with a -good humour that never failed. He sat under a swinging lamp in his cabin -when Horn and I were brought before him, and asked my name first in an -accent of English that was if anything somewhat better than my own. -</p> -<p> -“Greig,” said I; “Paul Greig,” and he started as if I had pricked him with -a knife. -</p> -<p> -A little table stood between us, on which there lay a book he had been -reading when we were brought below, some hours after the <i>Seven Sisters</i> -had gone down, and the search for the Kirkcaldy boat had been abandoned. -He took the lamp off its hook, came round the table and held the light so -that he could see my face the clearer. At any time his aspect was manly -and pleasant; most of all was it so when he smiled, and I was singularly -encouraged when he smiled at me, with a rapid survey of my person that -included the Hazel Den mole and my Uncle Andrew's shoes. -</p> -<p> -A seaman stood behind us; to him he spoke a message I could not -comprehend, as it was in French, of which I had but little. The seaman -retired; we were offered a seat, and in a minute the seaman came back with -a gentleman—a landsman by his dress. -</p> -<p> -“Pardon, my lord,” said the captain to his visitor, “but I thought that -here was a case—speaking of miracles—you would be interested -in. Our friends here”—he indicated myself particularly with a -gracious gesture—“are not, as you know, dropped from heaven, but -come from that unfortunate ship we saw go under a while ago. May I ask -your lordship to tell us—you will see the joke in a moment—whom -we were talking of at the moment our watch first announced the sight of -that vessel?” - </p> -<p> -His lordship rubbed his chin and smilingly peered at the captain. -</p> -<p> -“Gad!” he said. “You are the deuce and all, Thurot. What are you in the -mood for now? Why, we talked of Greig—Andrew Greig, the best player -of <i>passe-passe</i> and the cheerfullest loser that ever cut a pack.” - </p> -<p> -Thurot turned to me, triumphant. -</p> -<p> -“Behold,” said he, “how ridiculously small the world is. <i>Ma foi!</i> I -wonder how I manage so well to elude my creditors, even when I sail the -high seas. Lord Clancarty, permit me to have the distinguished honour to -introduce another Greig, who I hope has many more of his charming uncle's -qualities than his handsome eyes and red shoes. I assume it is a nephew, -because poor Monsieur Andrew was not of the marrying kind. Anyhow, 'tis a -Greig of the blood, or Antoine Thurot is a bat! And—Monsieur Greig, -it is my felicity to bid you know one of your uncle's best friends and -heartiest admirers—Lord Clancarty.” - </p> -<p> -“Lord Clancarty!” I cried, incredulous. “Why he figured in my uncle's -log-book a dozen years ago.” - </p> -<p> -“A dozen, no less!” cried his lordship, with a grimace. “We need not be so -particular about the period. I trust he set me down there a decently good -companion; I could hardly hope to figure in a faithful scribe's tablets as -an example otherwise,” said his lordship, laughing and taking me cordially -by the hand. “Gad! one has but to look at you to see Andrew Greig in every -line. I loved your uncle, lad. He had a rugged, manly nature, and just -sufficient folly, bravado, and sinfulness to keep a poor Irishman in -countenance. Thurot, one must apologise for taking from your very lips the -suggestion I see hesitating there, but sure 'tis an Occasion this; it must -be a bottle—the best bottle on your adorable but somewhat ill-found -vessel. Why 'tis Andy Greig come young again. Poor Andy! I heard of his -death no later than a month ago, and have ordered a score of masses for -him—which by the way are still unpaid for to good Father Hamilton. I -could not sleep happily of an evening—of a forenoon rather—if -I thought of our Andy suffering aught that a few candles and such-like -could modify.” And his lordship with great condescension tapped and passed -me his jewelled box of maccabaw. -</p> -<p> -You can fancy a raw lad, untutored and untravelled, fresh from the -plough-tail, as it were, was vastly tickled at this introduction to the -genteel world. I was no longer the shivering outlaw, the victim of a Risk. -I was honoured more or less for the sake of my uncle (whose esteem in this -quarter my father surely would have been surprised at), and it seemed as -though my new life in a new country were opening better than I had planned -myself. I blessed my shoes—the Shoes of Sorrow—and for the -time forgot the tragedy from which I was escaping. -</p> -<p> -They birled the bottle between them, Clancarty and Thurot, myself -virtually avoiding it, but clinking now and then, and laughing with them -at the numerous exploits they recalled of him that was the bond between -us; Horn elsewhere found himself well treated also; and listening to these -two gentlemen of the world, their allusions, off-hand, to the great, their -indications of adventure, travel, intrigue, enterprise, gaiety, I saw my -horizon expand until it was no longer a cabin on the sea I sat in, with -the lamplight swinging over me, but a spacious world of castles, palaces, -forests, streets, churches, casernes, harbours, masquerades, routs, -operas, love, laughter, and song. Perhaps they saw my elation and fully -understood, and smiled within them at my efforts to figure as a little man -of the world too—as boys will—but they never showed me other -than the finest sympathy and attention. -</p> -<p> -I found them fascinating at night; I found them much the same at morning, -which is the test of the thing in youth, and straightway made a hero of -the foreigner Thurot. Clancarty was well enough, but without any method in -his life, beyond a principle of keeping his character ever trim and -presentable like his cravat. Thurot carried on his strenuous career as -soldier, sailor, spy, politician, with a plausible enough theory that thus -he got the very juice and pang of life, that at the most, as he would aye -be telling me, was brief to an absurdity. -</p> -<p> -“Your Scots,” he would say to me, “as a rule, are too phlegmatic—is -it not, Lord Clancarty?—but your uncle gave me, on my word, a regard -for your whole nation. He had aplomb—Monsieur Andrew; he had luck -too, and if he cracked a nut anywhere there was always a good kernel in -it.” And the shoes see how I took the allusion to King George, and that -gave me a flood of light upon my new position. -</p> -<p> -I remembered that in my uncle's log-book the greater part of the narrative -of his adventures in France had to do with politics and the intrigues of -the Jacobite party. He was not, himself, apparently, “out,” as we call it, -in the affair of the 'Forty-five, because he did not believe the occasion -suitable, and thought the Prince precipitous, but before and after that -untoward event for poor Scotland, he had been active with such men as -Clancarty, Lord Clare, the Murrays, the Mareschal, and such-like, which -was not to be wondered at, perhaps, for our family had consistently been -Jacobite, a fact that helped to its latter undoing, though my father as -nominal head of the house had taken no interest in politics; and my own -sympathies had ever been with the Chevalier, whom I as a boy had seen ride -through the city of Glasgow, wishing myself old enough to be his follower -in such a glittering escapade as he was then embarked on. -</p> -<p> -But though I thought all this in a flash as it were, I betrayed nothing to -Captain Thurot, who seemed somewhat dashed at my silence. There must have -been something in my face, however, to show that I fully realised what he -was feeling at, and was not too complacent, for Clancarty laughed. -</p> -<p> -“Sure, 'tis a good boy, Thurot,” said he, “and loves his King George -properly, like a true patriot.” - </p> -<p> -“I won't believe it of a Greig,” said Captain Thurot. “A pestilent, dull -thing, loyalty in England; the other thing came much more readily, I -remember, to the genius of Andrew Greig. Come! Monsieur Paul, to be quite -frank about it, have you no instincts of friendliness to the exiled house? -M. Tête-de-fer has a great need at this particular moment for English -friends. Once he could count on your uncle to the last ditch; can he count -on the nephew?” - </p> -<p> -“M. Tête-de-fer?” I repeated, somewhat bewildered. -</p> -<p> -“M. Tête-de-mouche, rather,” cried my lord, testily, and then hurried to -correct himself. “He alluded, Monsieur Greig, to Prince Charles Edward. We -are all, I may confess, his Royal Highness's most humble servants; some of -us, however—as our good friend, Captain Thurot—more actively -than others. For myself I begin to weary of a cause that has been dormant -for eight years, but no matter; sure one must have a recreation!” - </p> -<p> -I looked at his lordship to see if he was joking. He was the relic of a -handsome man, though still, I daresay, less than fifty years of age, with -a clever face and gentle, just tinged by the tracery of small surface -veins to a redness that accused him of too many late nights; his mouth and -eyes, that at one time must have been fascinating, had the ultimate -irresolution that comes to one who finds no fingerposts at life's -cross-roads and thinks one road just as good's another. He was born at -Atena, near Hamburg (so much I had remembered from my uncle's memoir), but -he was, even in his accent, as Irish as Kerry. Someway I liked and yet -doubted him, in spite of all the praise of him that I had read in a dead -man's diurnal. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Fi donc! vous devriez avoir honte, milord</i>,” cried Thurot, somewhat -disturbed, I saw, at this reckless levity. -</p> -<p> -“Ashamed!” said his lordship, laughing; “why, 'tis for his Royal Highness -who has taken a diligence to the devil, and left us poor dependants to pay -the bill at the inn. But no matter, Master Greig, I'll be cursed if I say -a single word more to spoil a charming picture of royalty under a cloud.” - And so saying he lounged away from us, a strange exquisite for shipboard, -laced up to the nines, as the saying goes, parading the deck as it had -been the Rue St. Honoré, with merry words for every sailorman who tapped a -forehead to him. -</p> -<p> -Captain Thurot looked at him, smiling, and shrugged his shoulders. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Tête-de-mouche!</i> There it is for you, M. Paul—the head of a -butterfly. Now you—” he commanded my eyes most masterfully—“now -<i>you</i> have a Scotsman's earnestness; I should like to see you on the -right side. <i>Mon Dieu</i>, you owe us your life, no less; 'tis no more -King George's, for one of his subjects has morally sent you to the bottom -of the sea in a scuttled ship. I wish we had laid hands on your Risk and -his augers.” - </p> -<p> -But I was learning my world; I was cautious; I said neither yea nor nay. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XIV -</h2> -<h3> -IN DUNKERQUE—A LADY SPEAKS TO ME IN SCOTS AND A FAT PRIEST SEEMS TO -HAVE SOMETHING ON HIS MIND -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>wo days after, the <i>Roi Rouge</i> came to Dunkerque; Horn the seaman -went home to Scotland in a vessel out of Leith with a letter in his pocket -for my people at Hazel Den, and I did my best for the next fortnight to -forget by day the remorse that was my nightmare. To this Captain Thurot -and Lord Clancarty, without guessing 'twas a homicide they favoured, -zealously helped me. -</p> -<p> -And then Dunkerque at the moment was sparkling with attractions. Something -was in its air to distract every waking hour, the pulse of drums, the -sound of trumpets calling along the shores, troops manoeuvring, elation -apparent in every countenance. I was Thurot's guest in a lodging over a <i>boulangerie</i> -upon the sea front, and at daybreak I would look out from the little -window to see regiments of horse and foot go by on their way to an -enormous camp beside the old fort of Risebank. Later in the morning I -would see the soldiers toiling at the grand sluice for deepening the -harbour or repairing the basin, or on the dunes near Graveline manoeuvring -under the command of the Prince de Soubise and Count St. Germain. All day -the paving thundered with the roll of tumbrels, with the noise of plunging -horse; all night the front of the <i>boulangerie</i> was clamorous with -carriages bearing cannon, timber, fascines, gabions, and other military -stores. -</p> -<p> -Thurot, with his ship in harbour, became a man of the town, with ruffled -neck- and wrist-bands, the most extravagant of waistcoats, hats laced with -point d'Espagne, and up and down Dunkerque he went with a restless foot as -if the conduct of the world depended on him. He sent an old person, a -reduced gentleman, to me to teach me French that I laboured with as if my -life depended on it from a desire to be as soon as possible out of his -reverence, for, to come to the point and be done with it, he was my -benefactor to the depth of my purse. -</p> -<p> -Sometimes Lord Clancarty asked me out to a <i>déjeuner</i>. He moved in a -society where I met many fellow countrymen—Captain Foley, of Rooth's -regiment; Lord Roscommon and his brother young Dillon; Lochgarry, -Lieutenant-Colonel of Ogilvie's Corps, among others, and by-and-by I -became known favourably in what, if it was not actually the select society -of Dunkerque, was so at least in the eyes of a very ignorant young -gentleman from the moors of Mearns. -</p> -<p> -It was so strange a thing as to be almost incredible, but my Uncle Andy's -shoes seemed to have some magic quality that brought them for ever on -tracks they had taken before, and if my cast of countenance did not -proclaim me a Greig wherever I went, the shoes did so. They were a -passport to the favour of folks the most divergent in social state—to -a poor Swiss who kept the door and attended on the table at Clancarty's -(my uncle, it appeared, had once saved his life), and to Soubise himself, -who counted my uncle the bravest man and the best mimic he had ever met, -and on that consideration alone pledged his influence to find me a post. -</p> -<p> -You may be sure I did not wear such tell-tale shoes too often. I began to -have a freit about them as he had to whom they first belonged, and to -fancy them somehow bound up with my fortune. -</p> -<p> -I put them on only when curiosity prompted me to test what new -acquaintances they might make me, and one day I remember I donned them for -a party of blades at Lord Clancarty's, the very day indeed upon which the -poor Swiss, weeping, told me what he owed to the old rogue with the -scarred brow now lying dead in the divots of home. -</p> -<p> -There was a new addition to the company that afternoon—a priest who -passed with the name of Father Hamilton, though, as I learned later, he -was formerly Vliegh, a Fleming, born at Ostend, and had been educated -partly at the College Major of Louvain and partly in London. He was or had -been parish priest of Dixmunde near Ostend, and his most decent memory of -my uncle, whom he, too, knew, was a challenge to a drinking-bout in which -the thin man of Meams had been several bottles more thirsty than the fat -priest of Dixmunde. -</p> -<p> -He was corpulent beyond belief, with a dewlap like an ox; great limbs, a -Gargantuan appetite, and a laugh like thunder that at its loudest created -such convulsions of his being as compelled him to unbutton the neck of his -<i>soutane</i>, else he had died of a seizure. -</p> -<p> -His friends at Lord Clancarty's played upon him a little joke wherein I -took an unconscious part. It seemed they had told him Mr. Andrew Greig was -not really dead, but back in France and possessed of an elixir of youth -which could make the ancient and furrowed hills themselves look like -yesterday's creations. -</p> -<p> -“What! M. Andrew!” he had cried. “An elixir of grease were more in the -fellow's line; I have never seen a man's viands give so scurvy a return -for the attention he paid them. 'Tis a pole—this M. Andrew—but -what a head—what a head!” - </p> -<p> -“Oh! but 'tis true of the elixir,” they protested; “and he looks thirty -years younger; here he comes!” - </p> -<p> -It was then that I stepped in with the servant bawling my name, and the -priest surged to his feet with his face all quivering. -</p> -<p> -“What! M. Andrew!” he cried; “fattened and five-and-twenty. Holy Mother! -It is, then, that miracles are possible? I shall have a hogshead, master, -of thine infernal essence and drink away this paunch, and skip anon like -to the goats of—of-” - </p> -<p> -And then his friends burst into peals of laughter as much at my -bewilderment as at his credulity, and he saw that it was all a pleasantry. -</p> -<p> -“Mon Dieu!” he said, sighing like a November forest. “There was never more -pestilent gleek played upon a wretched man. Oh! oh! oh! I had an angelic -dream for that moment of your entrance, for I saw me again a stripling—a -stripling—and the girl's name was—never mind. God rest her! -she is under grass in Louvain.” - </p> -<p> -All the rest of the day—at Clancarty's, at the Café de la Poste, in -our walk along the dunes where cannon were being fired at marks well out -at sea, this obese cleric scarcely let his eyes off me. He seemed to envy -and admire, and then again he would appear to muse upon my countenance, -debating with himself as one who stands at a shop window pondering a -purchase that may be on the verge of his means. -</p> -<p> -Captain Thurot observed his interest, and took an occasion to whisper to -me. -</p> -<p> -“Have a care, M. Greig,” said he playfully; “this priest schemes -something; that's ever the worst of your Jesuits, and you may swear 'tis -not your eternal salvation.” - </p> -<p> -'Twas that afternoon we went all together to the curious lodging in the -Rue de la Boucherie. I remember as it had been yesterday how sunny was the -weather, and how odd it seemed to me that there should be a country-woman -of my own there. -</p> -<p> -She was not, as it seems to me now, lovely, though where her features -failed of perfection it would beat me to disclose, but there was something -inexpressibly fascinating in her—in the mild, kind, melting eyes, -and the faint sad innuendo of her smile. She sat at a spinet playing, and -for the sake of this poor exile, sang some of the songs we are acquainted -with at home. Upon my word, the performance touched me to the core! I felt -sick for home: my mother's state, the girl at Kirkillstane, the dead lad -on the moor, sounds of Earn Water, clouds and heather on the hill of -Ballageich—those mingled matters swept through my thoughts as I sat -with these blithe gentlemen, hearkening to a simple Doric tune, and my -eyes filled irrestrainably with tears. -</p> -<p> -Miss Walkinshaw—for so her name was—saw what effect her music -had produced; reddened, ceased her playing, took me to the window while -the others discussed French poetry, and bade me tell her, as we looked out -upon the street, all about myself and of my home. She was, perhaps, ten -years my senior, and I ran on like a child. -</p> -<p> -“The Mearns!” said she. “Oh dear, oh dear! And you come frae the Meams!” - She dropped into her Scots that showed her heart was true, and told me she -had often had her May milk in my native parish. -</p> -<p> -“And you maybe know,” said she, flushing, “the toun of Glasgow, and the -house of Walkinshaw, my—my father, there?” - </p> -<p> -I knew the house very well, but no more of it than that it existed. -</p> -<p> -It was in her eyes the tears were now, talking of her native place, but -she quickly changed the topic ere I could learn much about her, and she -guessed—with a smile coming through her tears, like a sun through -mist—that I must have been in love and wandered in its fever, to be -so far from home at my age. -</p> -<p> -“There was a girl,” I said, my face hot, my heart rapping at the -recollection, and someway she knew all about Isobel Fortune in five -minutes, while the others in the room debated on so trivial a thing as the -songs of the troubadours. -</p> -<p> -“Isobel Fortune!” she said (and I never thought the name so beautiful as -it sounded on her lips, where it lingered like a sweet); “Isobel Fortune; -why, it's an omen, Master Greig, and it must be a good fortune. I am wae -for the poor lassie that her big foolish lad”—she smiled with -bewitching sympathy at me under long lashes—“should be so far away -frae her side. You must go back as quick as you can; but stay now, is it -true you love her still?” - </p> -<p> -The woman would get the feeling and the truth from a heart of stone; I -only sighed for answer. -</p> -<p> -“Then you'll go back,” said she briskly, “and it will be Earn-side again -and trysts at Ballageich—oh! the name is like a bagpipe air to me!—and -you will be happy, and be married and settle down—and—and poor -Clemie Walkinshaw will be friendless far away from her dear Scotland, but -not forgetting you and your wife.” - </p> -<p> -“I cannot go back there at all,” I said, with a long face, bitter enough, -you may be sure, at the knowledge I had thrown away all that she depicted, -and her countenance fell. -</p> -<p> -“What for no'?” she asked softly. -</p> -<p> -“Because I fought a duel with the man that Isobel preferred, and—and—killed -him!” - </p> -<p> -She shuddered with a little sucking in of air at her teeth and drew up her -shoulders as if chilled with cold. -</p> -<p> -“Ah, then,” said she, “the best thing's to forget. Are you a Jacobite, -Master Greig?” - </p> -<p> -She had set aside my love affair and taken to politics with no more than a -sigh of sympathy, whether for the victim of my jealousy, or Isobel -Fortune, or for me, I could not say. -</p> -<p> -“I'm neither one thing nor another,” said I. “My father is a staunch -enough royalist, and so, I daresay, I would be too if I had not got a -gliff of bonnie Prince Charlie at the Tontine of Glasgow ten years ago.” - </p> -<p> -“Ten years ago!” she repeated, staring abstracted out at the window. “Ten -years ago! So it was; I thought it was a lifetime since. And what did you -think of him?” - </p> -<p> -Whatever my answer might have been it never got the air, for here -Clancarty, who had had a message come to the door for him, joined us at -the window, and she turned to him with some phrase about the trampling of -troops that passed along the streets. -</p> -<p> -“Yes,” he said, “the affair marches quickly. Have you heard that England -has declared war? And our counter declaration is already on its way -across. <i>Pardieu!</i> there shall be matters toward in a month or two -and the Fox will squeal. Braddock's affair in America has been the best -thing that has happened us in many years.” - </p> -<p> -Thus he went on with singular elation that did not escape me, though my -wits were also occupied by some curious calculations as to what disturbed -the minds of Hamilton and of the lady. I felt that I was in the presence -of some machinating influences probably at variance, for while Clancarty -and Roscommon and Thurot were elate, the priest made only a pretence at -it, and was looking all abstracted as if weightier matters occupied his -mind, his large fat hand, heavy-ringed, buttressing his dewlap, and Miss -Walkinshaw was stealing glances of inquiry at him—glances of inquiry -and also of distrust. All this I saw in a mirror over the mantelpiece of -the room. -</p> -<p> -“Sure there's but one thing to regret in it,” cried Clancarty suddenly, -stopping and turning to me, “it must mean that we lose Monsieur des -Souliers Rouges. <i>Peste!</i> There is always something to worry one -about a war!” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” said Thurot. -</p> -<p> -“The deportment,” answered his lordship. “Every English subject has been -ordered out of France. We are going to lose not only your company, Father -Hamilton, because of your confounded hare-brained scheme for covering all -Europe in a glass coach, but our M. Greig must put the Sleeve between him -and those best qualified to estimate and esteem his thousand virtues of -head and heart For a <i>louis</i> or two I'd take ship with him and fight -on the other side. Gad! it would always be fighting anyway, and one would -be by one's friend.” - </p> -<p> -The priest's jaw fell as if my going was a blow to his inmost affections; -he turned his face rapidly into shadow; Miss Walkinshaw lost no movement -of his; she was watching him as he had been a snake. -</p> -<p> -“Oh! but it is not necessary that we lose my compatriot so fast as that,” - she said. “There are such things as permits, excepting English friends of -ours from deportment,—and—and—I fancy I could get one -for Mr. Greig.” - </p> -<p> -In my heart I thanked her for her ready comprehension of my inability to -go back to Britain with an easy mind; and I bowed my recognition of her -goodness. -</p> -<p> -She was paying no heed to my politeness; she had again an eye on the -priest, who was obviously cheered marvellously by the prospect. -</p> -<p> -And then we took a dish of tea with her, the lords and Thurot loudly -cheerful, Hamilton ruminant and thundering alternately, Miss Walkinshaw -showing a score of graces as hostess, myself stimulated to some unusual -warmth of spirit as I sat beside her, well-nigh fairly loving her because -she was my country-woman and felt so fond about my native Mearns. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XV -</h2> -<h3> -WHEREIN A SITUATION OFFERS AND I ENGAGE TO GO TRAVELLING WITH THE PRIEST -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span> week passed with no further incident particularly affecting this -history. With my reduced and antique mentor I studied <i>la belle langue</i>, -sedulous by day, at night pacing the front of the sea, giving words to its -passion as it broke angry on the bar or thundered on the beach—the -sea that still haunts me and invites, whose absence makes often lonely the -moorland country where is my home, where are my people's graves. It called -me then, in the dripping weather of those nights in France—it called -me temptingly to try again my Shoes of Fortune (as now I named them to -myself), and learn whereto they might lead. -</p> -<p> -But in truth I was now a prisoner to that inviting sea. The last English -vessel had gone; the Channel was a moat about my native isle, and I was a -tee'd ball with a passport that was no more and no less than a warder's -warrant in my pouch. It had come to me under cover of Thurot two days -after Miss Walkinshaw's promise; it commanded <i>tous les gouverneurs et -tous les lieutenants-généraux de nos provinces et de nos armées, -gouverneurs particuliers et commandants de nos villes, places et troupes</i> -to permit and pass the Sieur Greig anywhere in the country, <i>sans lui -donner aucun empêchement</i>, and was signed for the king by the Duc de -Choiseuil. -</p> -<p> -I went round to make my devoirs to the lady to whom I owed the favour, and -this time I was alone. -</p> -<p> -“Where's your shoon, laddie?” said she at the first go-off. “Losh! do ye -no' ken that they're the very makin' o' ye? If it hadna been for them -Clementina Walkinshaw wad maybe never hae lookit the gait ye were on. -Ye'll be to put them on again!” She thrust forth a <i>bottine</i> like a -doll's for size and trod upon my toes, laughing the while with her curious -suggestion of unpractised merriment at my first solemn acceptance of her -humour as earnest. -</p> -<p> -“Am I never to get quit o' thae shoes?” I cried; “the very deil maun be in -them.” - </p> -<p> -“It was the very deil,” said she, “was in them when it was your Uncle -Andrew.” And she stopped and sighed. “O Andy Greig, Andy Greig! had I been -a wise woman and ta'en a guid-hearted though throughither Mearns man's -advice—toots! laddie, I micht be a rudas auld wife by my preachin'. -Oh, gie's a sang, or I'll dee.” - </p> -<p> -And then she flew to the spinet (a handsome instrument singularly out of -keeping with the rest of the plenishing in that odd lodging in the Rue de -la Boucherie of Dunkerque), and touched a prelude and broke into an air. -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -To-day they call that woman lost and wicked; I have seen it said in -books: God's pity on her! she was not bad; she was the very football of -fate, and a heart of the yellow gold. If I was warlock or otherwise had -charms, I would put back the dial two score years and wrench her from -her chains. - -O waly, waly up the bank, -O waly, waly doon the brae. -And waly, waly yon burn-side, -Where I and my love wont to gae. -I leaned my back unto an aik, -I thocht it was a trusty tree, -But first it bowed and syne it brak, -Sae my true love did lichtly me. -</pre> -<p> -They have their own sorrow even in script those ballad words of an exile -like herself, but to hear Miss Walkinshaw sing them was one of the saddest -things I can recall in a lifetime that has known many sorrows. And still, -though sad, not wanting in a sort of brave defiance of calumny, a hope, -and an unchanging affection. She had a voice as sweet as a bird in the -thicket at home; she had an eye full and melting; her lips, at the -sentiment, sometimes faintly broke. -</p> -<p> -I turned my head away that I might not spy upon her feeling, for here, it -was plain, was a tragedy laid bare. She stopped her song mid-way with a -laugh, dashed a hand across her eyes, and threw herself into a chair. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, fie! Mr. Greig, to be backing up a daft woman, old enough to know -better, in her vapours. You must be fancying I am a begrutten bairn to be -snackin' my daidlie in this lamentable fashion, but it's just you and your -Mearns, and your Ballageich, and your douce Scots face and tongue that -have fair bewitched me. O Scotland! Scotland! Let us look oot at this -France o' theirs, Mr. Greig.” She came to the window (her movements were -ever impetuous, like the flight of a butterfly), and “Do I no' wish that -was the Gallowgate,” said she, “and Glasgow merchants were in the shops -and Christian signs abin the doors, like 'MacWhannal' and 'Mackay,' and -'Robin Oliphant'? If that was Bailie John Walkinshaw, wi' his rattan, and -yon was the piazza o' Tontine, would no' his dochter be the happy woman? -Look! look! ye Mearns man, look! look! at the bairn playing pal-al in the -close. 'Tis my little sister Jeanie that's married on the great Doctor -Doig—him wi' the mant i' the Tron kirk—and bairns o' her ain, -I'm tell't, and they'll never hear their Aunt Clemie named but in a -whisper. And yon auld body wi' the mob cap, that's the baxter's widow, and -there's carvie in her scones that you'll can buy for a bawbee apiece.” - </p> -<p> -The maddest thing!—but here was the woman smiling through her tears, -and something tremulous in her as though her heart was leaping at her -breast. Suddenly her manner changed, as if she saw a sobering sight, and I -looked out again, and there was Father Hamilton heaving round the corner -of a lane, his face as red as the moon in a fog of frost. -</p> -<p> -“Ah!” cried Miss Walkinshaw, “here's France, sure enough, Mr. Greig. We -must put by our sentiments, and be just witty or as witty as we can be. If -you're no' witty here, my poor Mr. Greig, you might as well be dumb. A -heart doesna maitter much; but, oh! be witty.” - </p> -<p> -The priest was making for the house. She dried her tears before me, a -frankness that flattered my vanity; “and let us noo to our English, Mr. -Greig,” said she as the knock came to the door. “It need be nae honest -Scots when France is chappin'. Would you like to travel for a season?” - </p> -<p> -The question took me by surprise; it had so little relevance to what had -gone before. -</p> -<p> -“Travel?” I repeated. -</p> -<p> -“Travel,” said she again quickly. “In a glass coach with a companion who -has plenty of money—wherever it comes from—and see all Europe, -and maybe—for you are Scots like myself—make money. The fat -priest wants a secretary; that's the long and the short of it, for there's -his foot on the stairs, and if you'll say yes, I fancy I can get you the -situation.” - </p> -<p> -I did not hesitate a second. -</p> -<p> -“Why, then yes, to be sure,” said I, “and thank you kindly.” - </p> -<p> -“Thank <i>you</i>, Paul Greig,” said she softly, for now the Swiss had -opened the door, and she squeezed my wrist. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Benedicite!</i>” cried his reverence and came in, puffing hugely after -his climb, his face now purple almost to strangulation. “May the devil fly -away with turnpike stairs, Madame!—puff-puff—I curse them -whether they be wood or marble;—puff-puff—I curse them -Dunkerque; in Ostend, Paris, all Europe itself, ay even unto the two -Americas. I curse their designers, artisans, owners, and defenders in -their waking and sleeping! Madame, kindly consider your stairs anathema!” - </p> -<p> -“You need all your wind to cool your porridge, as we say in Scotland, -Father Hamilton,” cried Miss Walkinshaw, “and a bonny-like thing it is to -have you coming here blackguarding my honest stairs.” - </p> -<p> -He laughed enormously and fell into a chair, shaking the house as if the -world itself had quaked. “Pardon, my dear Miss Walkinshaw,” said he when -his breath was restored, “but, by the Mass, you must confess 'tis the -deuce and all for a man—a real man that loves his viands, and sleeps -well o' nights, and has a contented mind and grows flesh accordingly, to -trip up to Paradise—” here he bowed, his neck swelling in massive -folds—“to trip up to Paradise, where the angels are, as easily as a -ballet-dancer—bless her!—skips to the other place where, by my -faith! I should like to pay a brief visit myself, if 'twere only to see -old friends of the Opéra Comique. Madame, I give you good-day. Sir, -Monsieur Greig—'shalt never be a man like thine Uncle Andrew for all -thy confounded elixir. I favour not your virtuous early rising in the -young. There! thine uncle would a-been abed at this hour an' he were alive -and in Dunkerque; thou must be a confoundedly industrious and sober Greig -to be dangling at a petticoat-tail—Pardon, Madame, 'tis the dearest -tail, anyway!—before the hour meridian.” - </p> -<p> -“And this is France,” thought I. “Here's your papistical gospeller at -home!” I minded of the Rev. Scipio Walker in the kirk of Mearns, an image -ever of austerity, waling his words as they had come from Solomon, -groaning even-on for man's eternal doom. -</p> -<p> -The priest quickly comprehended my surprise at his humour, and laughed the -more at that till a fit of coughing choked him. “<i>Mon Dieu</i>” said he; -“our Andy reincarnate is an Andy most pestilent dull, or I'm a cockle, a -convoluted cockle, and uncooked at that. Why, man! cheer up, thou <i>croque -mort</i>, thou lanthorn-jaw, thou veal-eye, thou melancholious eater of -oaten-meal!” - </p> -<p> -“It's a humblin' sicht!” said I. The impertinence was no sooner uttered -than I felt degraded that I should have given it voice, for here was a -priest of God, however odd to my thinking, and, what was more, a man who -might in years have been my father. -</p> -<p> -But luckily it could never then, or at any other time, be said of Father -Hamilton that he was thin-skinned. He only laughed the more at me. -“Touche!” he cried. “I knew I could prick the old Andy somewhere. Still, -Master Paul, thine uncle was not so young as thou, my cockerel. Had seen -his world and knew that Scotland and its—what do you call them?—its -manses, did not provide the universal ensample of true piety.” - </p> -<p> -“I do not think, Father Hamilton,” said I, “that piety troubled him very -much, or his shoes had not been so well known in Dunkerque.” - </p> -<p> -Miss Walkinshaw laughed. -</p> -<p> -“There you are, Father Hamilton!” said she. “You'll come little speed with -a man from the Mearns moors unless you take him a little more seriously.” - </p> -<p> -Father Hamilton pursed his lips and rubbed down his thighs, an image of -the gross man that would have turned my father's stomach, who always liked -his men lean, clean, and active. He was bantering me, this fat priest of -Dixmunde, but all the time it was with a friendly eye. Thinks I, here's -another legacy of goodwill from my extraordinary uncle! -</p> -<p> -“Hast got thy pass yet, Master Dull?” said he. -</p> -<p> -“Not so dull, Master Minister, but what I resent the wrong word even in a -joke,” I replied, rising to go. -</p> -<p> -Thurot's voice was on the stair now, and Clan-carty's. If they were not to -find their <i>protégé</i> in an undignified war of words with the priest -of Dixmunde, it was time I was taking my feet from there, as the saying -went. -</p> -<p> -But Miss Walkinshaw would not hear of it. “No, no,” she protested, “we -have some business before you go to your ridiculous French—weary be -on the language that ever I heard <i>Je t'aime</i> in it!—and how -does the same march with you, Mr. Greig?” - </p> -<p> -“I know enough of it to thank my good friends in,” said I, “but that must -be for another occasion.” - </p> -<p> -“Father Hamilton,” said she, “here's your secretary.” - </p> -<p> -A curious flash came to those eyes pitted in rolls of flabby flesh, I -thought of an eagle old and moulting, languid upon a mountain cliff in -misty weather, catching the first glimpse of sun and turned thereby to -ancient memories. He said nothing; there was at the moment no opportunity, -for the visitors had entered, noisily polite and posturing as was their -manner, somewhat touched by wine, I fancied, and for that reason scarcely -welcomed by the mistress of the house. -</p> -<p> -There could be no more eloquent evidence of my innocence in these days -than was in the fact that I never wondered at the footing upon which these -noisy men of the world were with a countrywoman of mine. The cause they -often spoke of covered many mysteries; between the Rue de Paris and the -Rue de la Boucherie I could have picked out a score of Scots in exile for -their political faiths, and why should not Miss Walkinshaw be one of the -company? But sometimes there was just the faintest hint of over-much -freedom in their manner to her, and that I liked as little as she seemed -to do, for when her face flushed and her mouth firmed, and she became -studiously deaf, I felt ashamed of my sex, and could have retorted had not -prudence dictated silence as the wisest policy. -</p> -<p> -As for her, she was never but the minted metal, ringing true and decent, -compelling order by a glance, gentle yet secure in her own strength, -tolerant, but in bounds. -</p> -<p> -They were that day full of the project for invading England. It had gone -so far that soldiers at Calais and Boulogne were being practised in -embarkation. I supposed she must have a certain favour for a step that was -designed to benefit the cause wherefor I judged her an exile, but she -laughed at the idea of Britain falling, as she said, to a parcel of <i>crapauds</i>. -“Treason!” treason!” cried Thurot laughingly. -</p> -<p> -“Under the circumstances, Madame——” - </p> -<p> -“—Under the circumstances, Captain Thurot,” she interrupted quickly, -“I need not pretend at a lie. This is not in the Prince's interest, this -invasion, and it is a blow at a land I love. Mr. Greig here has just put -it into my mind how good are the hearts there, how pleasant the tongue, -and how much I love the very name of Scotland. I would be sorry to think -of its end come to pleasure the women in Versailles.” - </p> -<p> -“Bravo! bravo! <i>vive la bagatelle!</i>” cried my Lord Clancarty. “Gad! I -sometimes feel the right old pathriot myself. Sure I have a good mind—” - </p> -<p> -“Then 'tis not your own, my lord,” she cried quickly, displeasure in her -expression, and Clancarty only bowed, not a whit abashed at the sarcasm. -</p> -<p> -Father Hamilton drew me aside from these cheerful contentions, and plunged -into the matter that was manifestly occupying all his thoughts since Miss -Walkinshaw had mooted me as his secretary. -</p> -<p> -“Monsieur Greig,” he said, placing his great carcase between me and the -others in the room, “I declare that women are the seven plagues, and yet -here we come chasing them from <i>petit lever</i> till—till—well, -till as late as the darlings will let us. By the Mass and Father Hamilton -knows their value, and when a man talks to me about a woman and the love -he bears her, I think 'tis a maniac shouting the praise of the snake that -has crept to his breast to sting him. Women—chut!—now tell me -what the mischief is a woman an' thou canst.” - </p> -<p> -“I fancy, Father Hamilton,” said I, “you could be convinced of the merits -of woman if your heart was ever attacked by one—your heart, that -does not believe anything in that matter that emanates from your head.” - </p> -<p> -Again the eagle's gleam from the pitted eyes; and, upon my word, a sigh! -It was a queer man this priest of Dixmunde. -</p> -<p> -“Ah, young cockerel,” said he, “thou knowest nothing at all about it, and -as for me—well, I dare not; but once—once—once there -were dews in the woods, and now it is very dry weather, Master Greig. How -about thine honour's secretaryship? Gripp'st at the opportunity, young -fellow? Eh? Has the lady said sooth? Come now, I like the look of my old -Andrew's—my old Merry Andrew's nephew, and could willingly tolerate -his <i>croque-mort</i> countenance, his odour of the sanctuary, if he -could weather it with a plethoric good liver that takes the world as he -finds it.” - </p> -<p> -He was positively eager to have me. It was obvious from his voice. He took -me by the button of my lapel as if I were about to run away from his -offer, but I was in no humour to run away. Here was the very office I -should have chosen if a thousand offered. The man was a fatted sow to look -on, and by no means engaging in his manner to myself, but what was I and -what my state that I should be too particular? Here was a chance to see -the world—and to forget. Seeing the world might have been of most -importance some months ago in the mind of a clean-handed young lad in the -parish of Mearns in Scotland, but now it was of vastly more importance -that I should forget. -</p> -<p> -“We start in a week,” said the priest, pressing me closely lest I should -change my mind, and making the prospects as picturesque as he could. “Why -should a man of flesh and blood vex his good stomach with all this -babblement of king's wars? and a pox on their flat-bottomed boats! I have -seen my last Mass in Dixmunde; say not a word on that to our friends nor -to Madame; and I suffer from a very jaundice of gold. Is't a pact, friend -Scotland?” - </p> -<p> -A pact it was; I went out from Miss Walkinshaw's lodging that afternoon -travelling secretary to the fat priest. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XVI -</h2> -<h3> -RELATES HOW I INDULGED MY CURIOSITY AND HOW LITTLE CAME OF IT -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>unkerque in these days (it may be so no longer) was a place for a man to -go through with his nose in his fingers. Garbage stewed and festered in -the gutters of the street so that the women were bound to walk -high-kilted, and the sea-breeze at its briskest scarcely sufficed to stir -the stagnant, stenching atmosphere of the town, now villainously -over-populated by the soldiery with whom it was France's pleasant delusion -she should whelm our isle. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i>” cried Father Hamilton, as we emerged in this malodorous -open, “'twere a fairy godfather's deed to clear thee out of this feculent -cloaca. Think on't, boy; of you and me a week hence riding through the -sweet woods of Somme or Oise, and after that Paris! Paris! my lad of -tragedy; Paris, where the world moves and folk live. And then, perhaps, -Tours, and Bordeaux, and Flanders, and Sweden, Seville, St. Petersburg -itself, but at least the woods of Somme, where the roads are among -gossamer and dew and enchantment in the early morning—if we cared to -rise early enough to see them, which I promise thee we shall not.” - </p> -<p> -His lips were thick and trembling: he gloated as he pictured me this mad -itinerary, leaning heavily on my arm—Silenus on an ash sapling—half-trotting -beside me, looking up every now and then to satisfy himself I appreciated -the prospect. It was pleasant enough, though in a measure incredible, but -at the moment I was thinking of Miss Walkinshaw, and wondering much to -myself that this exposition of foreign travel should seem barely -attractive because it meant a severance from her. Her sad smile, her brave -demeanour, her kind heart, her beauty had touched me sensibly. -</p> -<p> -“Well, Master Scrivener!” cried the priest, panting at my side, “art -dumb?” - </p> -<p> -“I fancy, sir, it is scarcely the weather for woods,” said I. “I hope we -are not to put off our journey till the first of April a twelvemonth.” A -suspicion unworthy of me had flashed into my mind that I might, after all, -be no more than the butt of a practical joke. But that was merely for a -moment; the priest was plainly too eager on his scheme to be play-acting -it. -</p> -<p> -“I am very grateful to the lady,” I hastened to add, “who gave me the -chance of listing in your service. Had it not been for her you might have -found a better secretary, and I might have remained long enough in the -evil smells of Dunkerque that I'll like all the same in spite of that, -because I have so good a friend as Miss Walkinshaw in it.” - </p> -<p> -“La! la! la!” cried out Father Hamilton, squeezing my arm. “Here's our -young cockerel trailing wing already! May I never eat fish again if -'tisn't a fever in this woman that she must infect every man under three -score. For me I am within a month of the period immune, and only feel a -malaise in her company. Boy, perpend! Have I not told thee every woman, -except the ugliest, is an agent of the devil? I am the first to discover -that his majesty is married and his wife keeps shop when he is travelling—among -Jesuits and Jacobites and such busy fuel for the future fires. His wife -keeps shop, lad, and does a little business among her own sex, using the -handsomest for her purposes. Satan comes back to the <i>boutique</i>. -'What!' he cries, and counts the till, 'these have been busy days, good -wife.' And she, Madame Dusky, chuckles with a 'Ha! Jack, old man, hast a -good wife or not? Shalt never know how to herd in souls like sheep till -thou hast a quicker eye for what's below a Capuchin hood.' This—this -is a sweet woman, this Walkinshaw, Paul, but a dangerous. 'Ware hawk, lad, -'ware hawk!” - </p> -<p> -I suppose my face reddened at that; at least he looked at me again and -pinched, and “Smitten to the marrow; may I drink water and grow thin else. -<i>Sacré nom de nom!</i> 'tis time thou wert on the highways of Europe.” - </p> -<p> -“How does it happen that a countrywoman of mine is here alone?” I asked. -</p> -<p> -“I'll be shot if thou art not the rascalliest young innocent in France. -Aye! or out of Scotland,” cried Father Hamilton, holding his sides for -laughter. -</p> -<p> -“Is thy infernal climate of fogs and rains so pleasant that a woman of -spirit should abide there for ever an' she have the notion to travel -otherwheres? La! la! la! Master Scrivener, and thou must come to an honest -pious priest for news of the world. But, boy, I'm deaf and dumb; mine eyes -on occasion are without vision. Let us say the lady has been an -over-ardent Jacobite; 'twill suffice in the meantime. And now has't ever -set eyes on Charles Edward?” - </p> -<p> -I told him I had never had any hand in the Jacobite affairs, if that was -what he meant. -</p> -<p> -His countenance fell at that. -</p> -<p> -“What!” he cried, losing his Roman manner, “do you tell me you have never -seen him?” - </p> -<p> -But once, I explained, when he marched into Glasgow city with his wild -Highlanders and bullied the burgesses into providing shoes for his ragged -army. -</p> -<p> -“Ah,” said he with a clearing visage, “that will suffice. Must point him -out to me. Dixmunde parish was a poor place for seeing the great; 'tis why -I go wandering now.” - </p> -<p> -Father Hamilton's hint at politics confirmed my guess about Miss -Walkinshaw, but I suppose I must have been in a craze to speak of her on -any pretence, for later in the day I was at Thurot's lodging, and there -must precognosce again. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Oh, mon Dieu, quelle espièglerie!</i>” cried out the captain. “And -this a Greig too! Well, I do not wonder that your poor uncle stayed so -long away from home; faith, he'd have died of an <i>ennui</i> else. Miss -Walkinshaw is—Miss Walkinshaw; a countryman of her own should know -better than I all that is to be known about her. But 'tis not our affair, -Mr. Greig. For sure 'tis enough that we find her smiling, gentle, -tolerant, what you call the 'perfect lady'—<i>n'est ce pas?</i>And -of all the virtues, upon my word, kindness is the best and rarest, and -that she has to a miracle.” - </p> -<p> -“I'm thinking that is not a corsair's creed, Captain Thurot,” said I, -smiling at the gentleman's eagerness. He was standing over me like a -lighthouse, with his eyes on fire, gesturing with his arms as they had -been windmill sails. -</p> -<p> -“No, faith! but 'tis a man's, Master Greig, and I have been happy with it. -Touching our fair friend, I may say that, much as I admire her, I agree -with some others that ours were a luckier cause without her. Gad! the best -thing you could do, Mr. Greig, would be to marry her yourself and take her -back with you to Scotland.” - </p> -<p> -“What! byway of Paris in Father Hamilton's glass coach,” I said, bantering -to conceal my confusion at such a notion. -</p> -<p> -“H'm,” said he. “Father Hamilton and the lady are a pair.” He walked a -little up and down the room as if he were in a quandary. “A pair,” he -resumed. “I fancied I could see to the very centre of the Sphinx itself, -for all men are in ourselves if we only knew it, till I came upon this -Scotswoman and this infernal Flemish-English priest of Dix-munde. Somehow, -for them Antoine Thurot has not the key in himself yet. Still, 'twill -arrive, 'twill arrive! I like the lady—and yet I wish she were a -thousand miles away; I like the man too, but a Jesuit is too many men at -once to be sure of; and, Gad! I can scarcely sleep at nights for wondering -what he may be plotting. This grand tour of his-” - </p> -<p> -“Stop, stop!” I cried, in a fear that he might compromise himself in an -ignorance of my share in the tour in question; “I must tell you that I am -going with Father Hamilton as his secretary, although it bothers me to -know what scrivening is to be accomplished in a glass coach. Like enough I -am to be no more, in truth, than the gentleman's companion or courier, and -it is no matter so long as I am moving.” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed, and is it so?” cried Captain Thurot, stopping as if he had been -shot. “And how happens it that this priest is willing to take you, that -are wholly a foreigner and a stranger to the country?” - </p> -<p> -“Miss Walkinshaw recommended me,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Oh!” he cried, “you have not been long of getting into your excellent -countrywoman's kind favour. Is it that Tony Thurot has been doing the -handsome by an ingrate? No, no, Monsieur, that were a monstrous innuendo, -for the honour has been all mine. But that Miss Walkinshaw should be on -such good terms with the priest as to trouble with the provision of his -secretary is opposed to all I had expected of her. Why, she dislikes the -man, or I'm a stuffed fish.” - </p> -<p> -“Anyhow, she has done a handsome thing by me,” said I. “It is no wonder -that so good a heart as hers should smother its repugnances (and the -priest is a fat sow, there is no denying) for the sake of a poor lad from -its own country. You are but making it the plainer that I owe her more -than at first I gave her credit for.” - </p> -<p> -“Bless me, here's gratitude!” cried the captain, laughing at my warmth. -“Mademoiselle Walkinshaw has her own plans; till now, I fancied them -somewhat different from Hamilton's, but more fool I to fancy they were -what they seemed! All that, my dear lad, need not prevent your enjoying -your grand tour with the priest, who has plenty of money and the -disposition to spend it like a gentleman.” - </p> -<p> -Finally I went to my Lord Clancarty, for it will be observed that I had -still no hint as to the origin of the lady who was so good a friend of -mine. Though the last thing in the world I should have done was to pry -into her affairs for the indulgence of an idle curiosity, I would know the -best of her before the time came to say farewell, and leave of her with me -no more than a memory. -</p> -<p> -The earl was at the Café du Soleil d'Or, eating mussels on the terrace and -tossing the empty shells into the gutter what time he ogled passing women -and exchanged levitous repartee with some other frequenters of the place. -</p> -<p> -“Egad, Paul,” he cried, meeting me with effusion, “'tis said there is one -pearl to be found for every million mussels; but here's a pearl come to me -in the midst of a single score. An Occasion, lad; I sat at the dice last -night till a preposterous hour this morning, and now I have a headache -like the deuce and a thirst to take the Baltic. I must have the tiniest -drop, and on an Occasion too. <i>Voilà ! Gaspard, une autre bouteille.</i>” - </p> -<p> -He had his bottle, that I merely made pretence to help him empty, and I -had my precognition. -</p> -<p> -But it came to little in the long run. Oh yes, he understood my interest -in the lady (with rakish winking); 'twas a delicious creature for all its -<i>hauteur</i> when one ventured a gallantry, but somehow no particular -friend to the Earl of Clancarty, who, if she only knew it, was come of as -noble a stock as any rotten Scot ever went unbreeched; not but what (this -with a return of the naturally polite man) there were admirable and -high-bred people of that race, as instance my Uncle Andrew and myself. But -was there any reason why such a man as Charlie Stuart should be King of -Ireland? “I say, Greig, blister the old Chevalier and his two sons! There -is not a greater fumbler on earth than this sotted person, who has drunk -the Cause to degradation and would not stir a hand to serve me and my -likes, that are, begad! the fellow's betters.” - </p> -<p> -“But all this,” said I, “has little to do with Miss Walkinshaw. I have -nothing to say of the Prince, who may be all you say, though that is not -the repute he has in Scotland.” - </p> -<p> -“Bravo, Mr. Greig!” cried his lordship. “That is the tone if you would -keep in the lady's favour. Heaven knows she has little reason to listen to -praise of such a creature, but, then, women are blind. She loves not -Clancarty, as I have said; but, no matter, I forgive her that; 'tis well -known 'tis because I cannot stomach her prince.” - </p> -<p> -“And yet,” said I, “you must interest yourself in these Jacobite affairs -and mix with all that are here of that party.” - </p> -<p> -“Faith and I do,” he confessed heartily. “What! am I to be a mole and stay -underground? A man must have his diversion, and though I detest the Prince -I love his foolish followers. Do you know what, Mr. Greig? 'Tis the -infernal irony of things in this absurd world that the good fellows, the -bloods, the men of sensibilities must for ever be wrapped up in poor mad -escapades and emprises. And a Clancarty is ever of such a heart that the -more madcap the scheme the more will he dote on it.” - </p> -<p> -A woman passing in a chair at this moment looked in his direction; -fortunately, otherwise I was condemned to a treatise on life and pleasure. -</p> -<p> -“Egad!” he cried, “there's a face that's like a line of song,” and he -smiled at her with unpardonable boldness as it seemed to me, a pleasant -pucker about his eyes, a hint of the good comrade in his mouth. -</p> -<p> -She flushed like wine and tried to keep from smiling, but could not -resist, and smiling she was borne away. -</p> -<p> -“Do you know her, my lord?” I could not forbear asking. -</p> -<p> -“Is it know her?” said he. “Devil a know, but 'tis a woman anyhow, and a -heart at that. Now who the deuce can she be?” And he proceeded, like a -true buck, to fumble with the Mechlin of his fall and dust his stockings -in an airy foppish manner so graceful that I swear no other could have -done the same so well. -</p> -<p> -“Now this Miss Walkinshaw—” I went on, determined to have some -satisfaction from my interview. -</p> -<p> -“Confound your Miss Walkinshaw, by your leave, Mr. Greig,” he interrupted. -“Can you speak of Miss Walkinshaw when the glory of the comet is still -trailing in the heavens? And—hum!—I mind me of a certain -engagement, Mr. Greig,” he went on hurriedly, drawing a horologe from his -fob and consulting it with a frowning brow. “In the charm of your -conversation I had nigh forgot, so <i>adieu, adieu, mon ami!</i>” - </p> -<p> -He gave me the tips of his fingers, and a second later he was gone, -stepping down the street with a touch of the minuet, tapping his legs with -his cane, his sword skewering his coat-skirts, all the world giving him -the cleanest portion of the thoroughfare and looking back after him with -envy and admiration. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XVII -</h2> -<h3> -WITNESSES THE LAST OF A BLATE YOUNG MAN -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd all this time it may well be wondered where was my remorse for a shot -fired on the moor of Mearns, for two wretched homes created by my passion -and my folly. And where, in that shifting mind of mine, was the place of -Isobel Fortune, whose brief days of favour for myself (if that, indeed, -was not imagination on my part) had been the cause of these my wanderings? -There is one beside me as I write, ready to make allowance for youth and -ignorance, the untutored affection, the distraught mind, if not for the -dubiety as to her feelings for myself when I was outlawed for a deed of -blood and had taken, as the Highland phrase goes, the world for my pillow. -</p> -<p> -I did not forget the girl of Kirkillstane; many a time in the inward -visions of the night, and of the day too, I saw her go about that far-off -solitary house in the hollow of the hills. Oddly enough, 'twas ever in -sunshine I saw her, with her sun-bonnet swinging from its ribbons and her -hand above her eyes, shading them that she might look across the fields -that lay about her home, or on a tryst of fancy by the side of Earn, -hearing the cushats mourn in a magic harmony with her melancholy thoughts. -As for the killing of young Borland, that I kept, waking at least, from my -thoughts, or if the same intruded, I found it easier, as time passed, to -excuse myself for a fatality that had been in the experience of nearly -every man I now knew—of Clancarty and Thurot, of the very baker in -whose house I lodged and who kneaded the dough for his little bread not a -whit the less cheerily because his hands had been imbrued. -</p> -<p> -The late Earl of Clare, in France called the Maréchal Comte de Thomond, -had come to Dunkerque in the quality of Inspector-General of the Armies of -France, to review the troops in garrison and along that menacing coast. -The day after my engagement with Father Hamilton I finished my French -lesson early and went to see his lordship and his army on the dunes to the -east of the town. Cannon thundered, practising at marks far out in the -sea; there was infinite manoeuvring of horse and foot; the noon was noisy -with drums and the turf shook below the hoofs of galloping chargers. I -fancy it was a holiday; at least, as I recall the thing, Dunkerque was all -<i>en fête</i>, and a happy and gay populace gathered in the rear of the -maréchales flag. Who should be there among the rest, or rather a little -apart from the crowd, but Miss Walkinshaw! She had come in a chair; her -dainty hand beckoned me to her side almost as soon as I arrived. -</p> -<p> -“Now, that's what I must allow is very considerate,” said she, eyeing my -red shoes, which were put on that day from some notion of proper -splendour. -</p> -<p> -“Well considered?” I repeated. -</p> -<p> -“Just well considered,” said she. “You know how much it would please me to -see you in your red shoes, and so you must put them on.” - </p> -<p> -I was young in these days, and, like the ass I was, I quickly set about -disabusing her mind of a misapprehension that injured her nor me. -</p> -<p> -“Indeed, Miss Walkinshaw,” said I, “how could I do that when I did not -know you were to be here? You are the last I should have expected to see -here.” - </p> -<p> -“What!” she exclaimed, growing very red. “Does Mr. Greig trouble himself -so much about the <i>convenances?</i> And why should I not be here if I -have the whim? Tell me that, my fastidious compatriot.” - </p> -<p> -Here was an accountable flurry over a thoughtless phrase! -</p> -<p> -“No reason in the world that I know of,” said I gawkily, as red as -herself, wondering what it was my foot was in. -</p> -<p> -“That you know of,” she repeated, as confused as ever. “It seems to me, -Mr. Greig, that the old gentleman who is tutoring you in the French -language would be doing a good turn to throw in a little of the manners of -the same. Let me tell you that I am as much surprised as you can be to -find myself here, and now that you are so good as to put me in mind of the—of -the—of the <i>convenances</i>, I will go straight away home. It was -not the priest, nor was it Captain Thurot that got your ear, for they are -by the way of being gentlemen; it could only have been this Irishman -Clancarty—the quality of that country have none of the scrupulosity -that distinguishes our own. You can tell his lordship, next time you see -him, that Miss Walkinshaw will see day about with him for this.” - </p> -<p> -She ordered her chairmen to take her home, and then—burst into -tears! -</p> -<p> -I followed at her side, in a stew at my indiscoverable blundering, my <i>chapeau-de-bras</i> -in my hand, and myself like to greet too for sympathy and vexation. -</p> -<p> -“You must tell me what I have done, Miss Walkinshaw,” I said. “Heaven -knows I have few enough friends in this world without losing your good -opinion through an offence of whose nature I am entirely ignorant.” - </p> -<p> -“Go away!” she said, pushing my fingers from the side of her chair, that -was now being borne towards the town. -</p> -<p> -“Indeed, and I shall not, Miss Walkinshaw, asking your pardon for the -freedom,” I said, “for here's some monstrous misconception, and I must -clear myself, even at the cost of losing your favour for ever.” - </p> -<p> -She hid her face in her handkerchief and paid no more heed to me. Feeling -like a mixture of knave and fool, I continued to walk deliberately by her -side all the way into the Rue de la Boucherie. She dismissed the chair and -was for going into the house without letting an eye light on young -persistency. -</p> -<p> -“One word, Miss Walkinshaw,” I pleaded. “We are a Scottish man and a -Scottish woman, our leelones of all our race at this moment in this -street, and it will be hard-hearted of the Scottish woman if she will not -give her fellow countryman, that has for her a respect and an affection, a -chance to know wherein he may have blundered.” - </p> -<p> -“Respect and affection,” she said, her profile turned to me, her foot on -the steps, visibly hesitating. -</p> -<p> -“Respect and affection,” I repeated, flushing at my own boldness. -</p> -<p> -“In spite of Clancarty's tales of me?” she said, biting her nether lip and -still manifestly close on tears. -</p> -<p> -“How?” said I, bewildered. “His lordship gave me no tales that I know of.” - </p> -<p> -“And why,” said she, “be at such pains to tell me you wondered I should be -there?” - </p> -<p> -I got very red at that. -</p> -<p> -“You see, you cannot be frank with me, Mr. Greig,” she said bitterly. -</p> -<p> -“Well, then,” I ventured boldly, “what I should have said was that I -feared you would not be there, for it's there I was glad to see you. And I -have only discovered that in my mind since you have been angry with me and -would not let me explain myself.” - </p> -<p> -“What!” she cried, quite radiant, “and, after all, the red shoon were not -without a purpose? Oh, Mr. Greig, you're unco' blate! And, to tell you the -truth, I was just play-acting yonder myself. I was only making believe to -be angry wi' you, and now that we understand each ither you can see me to -my parlour.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, Bernard,” she said to the Swiss as we entered, “any news?” - </p> -<p> -He informed her there was none. -</p> -<p> -“What! no one called?” said she with manifest disappointment. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Personne, Madame</i>.” - </p> -<p> -“No letters?” - </p> -<p> -Nor were there any letters, he replied. -</p> -<p> -She sighed, paused irresolute a moment with her foot on the stair, one -hand at her heart, the other at the fastening of her coat, and looked at -me with a face almost tragic in its trouble. I cannot but think she was on -the brink of a confidence, but ere it came she changed her mind and dashed -up the stair with a tra-la-la of a song meant to indicate her -indifference, leaving me a while in her parlour while she changed her -dress. She came back to me in a little, attired in a pale -primrose-coloured paduasoy, the cuffs and throat embroidered in a pattern -of roses and leaves, her hair unpowdered and glossy, wantoning in and out -of a neck beyond description. The first thing she did on entrance was odd -enough, for it was to stand over me where I lounged on her settee, staring -down into my eyes until I felt a monstrous embarrassment. -</p> -<p> -“I am wonderin',” said she, “if ye are the man I tak' ye for.” - </p> -<p> -Her eyes were moist; I saw she had been crying in her toilet room. -</p> -<p> -“I'm just the man you see,” I said, “but for some unco' troubles that are -inside me and are not for airing to my friends on a fine day in -Dunkerque.” - </p> -<p> -“Perhaps, like the lave of folks, ye dinna ken yoursel',” she went on, -speaking with no sprightly humour though in the Scots she was given to -fall to in her moments of fun. “All men, Mr. Greig, mean well, but most of -them fall short of their own ideals; they're like the women in that, no -doubt, but in the men the consequence is more disastrous.” - </p> -<p> -“When I was a girl in a place you know,” she went on even more soberly, “I -fancied all men were on the model of honest John Walkinshaw—better -within than without. He was stern to austerity, demanding the last -particle of duty from his children, and to some he might seem hard, but I -have never met the man yet with a kinder heart, a pleasanter mind, a more -pious disposition than John Walkin-shaw's. It has taken ten years, and -acquaintance with some gentry not of Scotland, to make it plain that all -men are not on his model.” - </p> -<p> -“I could fancy not, to judge from his daughter,” I said, blushing at my -first compliment that was none the less bold because it was sincere. -</p> -<p> -At that she put on a little mouth and shrugged her shoulders with a shiver -that made the snaps in her ears tremble. -</p> -<p> -“My good young man,” said she, “there you go! If there's to be any -friendship between you and Clementina Walkinshaw, understand there must be -a different key from that. You are not only learning your French, but you -are learning, it would seem, the manners of the nation. It was that made -me wonder if you could be the man I took you for the first day you were in -this room and I found I could make you greet with a Scots sang, and tell -me honestly about a lass you had a notion of and her no' me. That last's -the great stroke of honesty in any man, and let me tell you there are some -women who would not relish it. But you are in a company here so ready with -the tongue of flattery that I doubt each word they utter, and that's droll -enough in me that loves my fellow creatures, and used to think the very -best of every one of them. If I doubt them now I doubt them with a sore -enough heart, I'll warrant you. Oh! am I not sorry that my man of Mearns -should be put in the reverence of such creatures as Clancarty and Thurot, -and all that gang of worldlings? I do not suppose I could make you -understand it, Mr. Paul Greig, but I feel motherly to you, and to see my -son—this great giant fellow who kens the town of Glasgow and dwelt -in Mearns where I had May milk, and speaks wi' the fine Scots tongue like -mysel' when his heart is true—to see him the boon comrade with folks -perhaps good enough for Clementina Walkinshaw but lacking a particle of -principle, is a sight to sorrow me.” - </p> -<p> -“And is it for that you seek to get me away with the priest?” I asked, -surprised at all this, and a little resenting the suggestion of youth -implied in her feeling like a mother to me. Her face was lit, her movement -free and beautiful; something in her fascinated me. -</p> -<p> -She dropped in a chair and pushed the hair from her ears with a hand like -milk, and laughed. -</p> -<p> -“Now how could you guess?” said she. “Am I no' the careful mother of you -to put you in the hands o' the clergy? I doubt this play-acting -rhetorician of a man from Dixmunde is no great improvement on the rest of -your company when all's said and done, but you'll be none the worse for -seeing the world at his costs, and being in other company than Clancarty's -and Thurot's and Roscommon's. He told me to-day you were going with him, -and I was glad that I had been of that little service to you.” - </p> -<p> -“Then it seems you think so little of my company as to be willing enough -to be rid of me at the earliest opportunity,” I said, honestly somewhat -piqued at her readiness to clear me out of Dunkerque. -</p> -<p> -She looked at me oddly. “Havers, Mr. Greig!” said she, “just havers!” - </p> -<p> -I was thanking her for her offices, but she checked me. “You are well -off,” she said, “to be away from here while these foolish manouvrings are -on foot. Poor me! I must bide and see them plan the breaking down of my -native country. It's a mercy I know in what a fiasco it will end, this -planning. Hearken! Do you hear the bugles? That's Soubise going back to -the caserne. He and his little men are going back to eat another dinner -destined to assist in the destruction of an island where you and I should -be this day if we were wiser than we are. Fancy them destroying Britain, -Mr. Greig!—Britain, where honest John Walkinshaw is, that never said -an ill word in his life, nor owed any man a penny: where the folks are -guid and true, and fear God and want nothing but to be left to their -crofts and herds. If it was England—if it was the palace of Saint -James—no, but it's Scotland, too, and the men you saw marching up -and down to-day are to be marching over the moor o' Mearns when the -heather's red. Can you think of it?” She stamped her foot. “Where the wee -thack hooses are at the foot o' the braes, and the bairns playing under -the rowan trees; where the peat is smelling, and the burns are singing in -the glens, and the kirk-bells are ringing. Poor Mr. Greig! Are ye no' wae -for Scotland? Do ye think Providence will let a man like Thomond ye saw -to-day cursing on horseback—do ye think Providence will let him lead -a French army among the roads you and I ken so well, affronting the people -we ken too, who may be a thought dull in the matter of repartee, but are -for ever decent, who may be hard-visaged, but are so brave?” - </p> -<p> -She laughed, herself, half bitterly, half contemptuously, at the picture -she drew. Outside, in the sunny air of the afternoon, the bugles of -Soubise filled the street with brazen cries, and nearer came the roar of -pounding drums. I thought I heard them menacing the sleep of evening -valleys far away, shattering the calm of the hearth of Hazel Den. -</p> -<p> -“The cause for which—for which so many are exile here,” I said, -looking on this Jacobite so strangely inconsistent, “has no reason to -regret that France should plan an attack on Georgius Rex.” - </p> -<p> -She shook her head impatiently. “The cause has nothing to do with it, Mr. -Greig,” said she. “The cause will suffer from this madness more than ever -it did, but in any case 'tis the most miserable of lost causes.” - </p> -<p> -“Prince Charlie-” - </p> -<p> -“Once it was the cause with me, now I would sooner have it Scotland,” she -went on, heedless of my interruption. “Scotland! Scotland! Oh, how the -name of her is like a dirge to me, and my heart is sore for her! Where is -your heart, Mr. Greig, that it does not feel alarm at the prospect of -these <i>crapauds</i> making a single night's sleep uneasy for the folks -you know? Where is your heart, I'm asking?” - </p> -<p> -“I wish I knew,” said I impulsively, staring at her, completely bewitched -by her manner so variable and intense, and the straying tendrils of her -hair. -</p> -<p> -“Do you not?” said she. “Then I will tell you. It is where it ought to be—with -a girl of the name of Isobel Fortune. Oh, the dear name! oh, the sweet -name! And when you are on your travels with this priest do not be -forgetting her. Oh, yes! I know you will tell me again that all is over -between the pair of you, and that she loved another—but I am not -believing a word of that, Mr. Greig, when I look at you—(and will ye -say 'thank ye' for the compliment that's there?)—you will just go on -thinking her the same, and you will be the better man for it. There's -something tells me she is thinking of you though I never saw her, the -dear! Let me see, this is what sort of girl she will be.” - </p> -<p> -She drew her chair closer to the settee and leaned forward in front of me, -and, fixing her eyes on mine, drew a picture of the girl of Kirkillstane -as she imagined her. -</p> -<p> -“She will be about my own height, and with the same colour of hair-” - </p> -<p> -“How do you know that? I never said a word of that to you,” I cried, -astonished at the nearness of her first guess. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, I'm a witch,” she cried triumphantly, “a fair witch. Hoots! do I no' -ken ye wadna hae looked the side o' the street I was on if I hadna put ye -in mind o' her? Well, she's my height and colour—but, alack-a-day, -no' my years. She 'll have a voice like the mavis for sweetness, and 'll -sing to perfection. She'll be shy and forward in turns, accordin' as you -are forward and shy; she 'll can break your heart in ten minutes wi' a -pout o' her lips or mak' ye fair dizzy with delight at a smile. And then”—here -Miss Walkinshaw seemed carried away herself by her fancy portrait, for she -bent her brows studiously as she thought, and seemed to speak in an -abstraction—“and then she'll be a managing woman. She'll be the sort -of woman that the Bible tells of whose value is over rubies; knowing your -needs as you battle with the world, and cheerful when you come in to the -hearthstone from the turmoil outside. A witty woman and a judge of things, -calm but full of fire in your interests. A household where the wife's a -doll is a cart with one wheel, and your Isobel will be the perfect woman. -I think she must have travelled some, too, and seen how poor is the wide -world compared with what is to be found at your own fire-end; I think she -must have had trials and learned to be brave.” - </p> -<p> -She stopped suddenly, looked at me and got very red in the face. -</p> -<p> -“A fine picture, Miss Walkinshaw!” said I, with something drumming at my -heart. “It is not just altogether like Isobel Fortune, who has long syne -forgot but to detest me, but I fancy I know who it is like.” - </p> -<p> -“And who might that be?” she asked in a low voice and with a somewhat -guilty look. -</p> -<p> -“Will I tell you?” I asked, myself alarmed at my boldness. -</p> -<p> -“No! no! never mind,” she cried. “I was just making a picture of a girl I -once knew—poor lass! and of what she might have been. But she's dead—dead -and buried. I hope, after all, your Isobel is a nobler woman than the one -I was thinking on and a happier destiny awaiting her.” - </p> -<p> -“That cannot matter much to me now,” I said, “for, as I told you, there is -nothing any more between us—except—except a corp upon the -heather.” - </p> -<p> -She shuddered as she did the first time I told her of my tragedy, and -sucked in the air again through her clenched teeth. -</p> -<p> -“Poor lad! poor lad!” said she. “And you have quite lost her. If so, and -the thing must be, then this glass coach of Father Hamilton's must take -you to the country of forgetfulness. I wish I could drive there myself -this minute, but wae's me, there's no chariot at the <i>remise</i> that'll -do that business for John Walkinshaw's girl.” - </p> -<p> -Something inexpressively moving was in her mien, all her heart was in her -face as it seemed; a flash of fancy came to me that she was alone in the -world with nothing of affection to hap her round from its abrasions, and -that her soul was crying out for love. Sweet beyond expression was this -woman and I was young; up to my feet I rose, and turned on her a face that -must have plainly revealed my boyish passion. -</p> -<p> -“Miss Walkinshaw,” I said, “you may put me out of this door for ever, but -I'm bound to say I'm going travelling in no glass coach; Dunkerque will be -doing very well for me.” - </p> -<p> -Her lips trembled; her cheek turned pale; she placed a hand upon her -breast, and there was I contrite before her anger! -</p> -<p> -“Is this—is this your respect and your esteem, Mr. Greig?” she asked -brokenly. -</p> -<p> -“They were never greater than at this moment,” I replied. -</p> -<p> -“And how are they to be manifested by your waiting on in Dunkerque?” she -asked, recovering her colour and some of her ordinary manner. -</p> -<p> -How indeed? She had no need to ask me the question, for it was already -ringing through my being. That the Spoiled Horn from Mearns, an outlaw -with blood on his hands and borrowed money in his pocket, should have the -presumption to feel any ardour for this creature seemed preposterous to -myself, and I flushed in an excess of shame and confusion. -</p> -<p> -This seemed completely to reassure her. “Oh, Mr. Greig—Mr. Greig, -was I not right to ask if ye were the man ye seemed? Here's a nice display -o' gallantry from my giant son! I believe you are just makin' fun o' this -auld wife; and if no' I hae just one word for you, Paul Greig, and it's -this that I said afore—jist havers!” - </p> -<p> -She went to her spinet and ran her fingers over the keys and broke into a -song— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -Oh, what ails the laddie, new twined frae his mither? -The laddie gallantin' roun' Tibbie and me?— -</pre> -<p> -with glances coquettish yet repelling round her shoulder at me as I stood -turning my <i>chapeau-de-bras</i> in my hand as a boy turns his bonnet in -presence of laird or dominie. The street was shaking now with the sound of -marching soldiers, whose platoons were passing in a momentary silence of -trumpet or drum. All at once the trumpets blared forth just in front of -the house, broke upon her song, and gave a heavensent diversion to our -comedy or tragedy or whatever it was in the parlour. -</p> -<p> -We both stood looking out at the window for a while in silence, watching -the passing troops, and when the last file had gone, she turned with a -change of topic “If these men had been in England ten years ago,” she -said, “when brisk affairs were doing there with Highland claymores, your -Uncle Andrew would have been there, too, and it would not perhaps be your -father who was Laird of Hazel Den. But that's all by with now. And when do -you set out with Father Hamilton?” - </p> -<p> -She had a face as serene as fate; my heart ached to tell her that I loved -her, but her manner made me hold my tongue on that. -</p> -<p> -“In three days,” I said, still turning my hat and wishing myself -elsewhere, though her presence intoxicated. -</p> -<p> -“In three days!” she said, as one astonished. “I had thought it had been a -week at the earliest. Will I tell you what you might do? You are my great -blate bold son, you know, from the moors of Mearns, and I will be wae, -wae, to think of you travelling all round Europe without a friend of your -own country to exchange a word with. Write to me; will you?” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed and I will, and that gaily,” I cried, delighted at the prospect. -</p> -<p> -“And you will tell me all your exploits and where you have been and what -you have seen, and where you are going and what you are going to do, and -be sure there will be one Scots heart thinking of you (besides Isobel, I -daresay), and I declare to you this one will follow every league upon the -map, saying 'the blate lad's there to-day,' 'the blate lad's to be here at -noon to-morrow.' Is it a bargain? Because you know I will write to you—but -oh! I forgot; what of the priest? Not for worlds would I have him know -that I kept up a correspondence with his secretary. That is bad.” - </p> -<p> -She gazed rather expectantly at me as if looking for a suggestion, but the -problem was beyond me, and she sighed. -</p> -<p> -“Of course his reverence need not know anything about it,” she said then. -</p> -<p> -“Certainly,” I acquiesced, jumping at so obvious a solution. “I will never -mention to him anything about it.” - </p> -<p> -“But how will I get your letters and how will you get mine without his -suspecting something?” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, but he cannot suspect.” - </p> -<p> -“What, and he a priest, too! It's his trade, Mr. Greig, and this Father -Hamilton would spoil all if he knew we were indulging ourselves so -innocently. What you must do is to send your letters to me in a way that I -shall think of before you leave and I shall answer in the same way. But -never a word, remember, to his reverence; I depend on your honour for -that.” - </p> -<p> -As I was going down the stair a little later, she leaned over the -bannister and cried after me: -</p> -<p> -“Mr. Greig,” said she, “ye needna' be sae hainin' wi' your red shoes when -ye're traivellin' in the coach. I would be greatly pleased to be thinkin' -of you as traivellin' in them a' the time.” - </p> -<p> -I looked up and saw her smiling saucily at me over the rail. -</p> -<p> -“Would you indeed?” said I. “Then I'll never put them aff till I see ye -again, when I come back to Dunkerque.” - </p> -<p> -“That is kind,” she answered, laughing outright, “but fair reediculous. To -wear them to bed would be against your character for sobriety.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XIX -</h2> -<h3> -A RAP IN THE EARLY MORNING AWAKENS ME AND I START IN A GLASS COACH UPON -THE ODDEST OF JOURNEYS -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was the last, for many months, I was to see of my countrywoman. Before -the crow of the cock next morning I was on the unending roads, trundling -in a noisy vehicle through pitch darkness, my companion snoring stertorous -at my side, his huge head falling every now and then upon my shoulder, -myself peering to catch some revelation of what manner of country-side we -went through as the light from the swinging lanthorn lit up briefly -passing banks of frosted hedge or sleeping hamlets on whose pave the hoofs -of our horses hammered as they had been the very war-steeds of Bellona. -</p> -<p> -But how came I there? How but by my master's whim, that made him -anticipate his departure by three days and drag me from my bed incontinent -to set out upon his trip over Europe. -</p> -<p> -I had been sleeping soundly, dreaming I heard the hopper of the mill of -Driepps at home banging to make Jock Alexander's fortune, when I awakened, -or rather half-wakened, to discover that 'twas no hopper but a nieve at my -door, rapping with a vigour to waken the dead. -</p> -<p> -“Come out! Sir Secretary, come out! or I shall pull thy domicile about -thine ears,” cried the voice of Father Hamilton. -</p> -<p> -He stood at the door when I opened, wrapped over the chin in a muffler of -multitudinous folds, and covered by a roquelaure. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Pax!</i>” he cried, thrusting a purple face into the room, “and on -with thy boots like a good lad. We must be off and over the dunes before -the bell of St. Eloi knocks another nail in the coffin of time.” - </p> -<p> -“What!” I said, dumbfoundered, “are we to start on our journey to-day?” - </p> -<p> -“Even so, my sluggardly Scot; faith! before the day even, for the day will -be in a deuce of a hurry an' it catch up on us before we reach -Pont-Opoise. Sop a crust in a jug of wine—I've had no better <i>petit -déjeuner</i> myself—put a clean cravat and a pair of hose in thy -sack, and in all emulate the judicious flea that wastes no time in idle -rumination, but transacts its affairs in a succession of leaps.” - </p> -<p> -“And no time to say good-bye to anyone?” I asked, struggling into my -toilet. -</p> -<p> -“La! la! la! the flea never takes a <i>congé</i> that I've heard on, -Master Punctilio. Not so much as a kiss o' the hand for you; I have had -news, and 'tis now or never.” - </p> -<p> -Twenty minutes later, Thurot's landlord (for Thurot himself was from home) -lit me to the courtyard, and the priest bundled me and my sack into the -bowels of an enormous chariot waiting there. -</p> -<p> -The clocks began to strike the hour of five; before the last stroke had -ceased to shiver the darkness we were thundering along the sea front and -my master was already composed to sleep in his corner, without vouchsafing -me a sentence of explanation for so hurried a departure. Be sure my heart -was sore! I felt the blackest of ingrates to be thus speeding without a -sign of farewell from a place where I had met with so much of friendship. -</p> -<p> -Out at the window of the coach I gazed, to see nothing but the cavernous -night on one side, on the other, lit by the lanthorn, the flashing past of -houses all shuttered and asleep. -</p> -<p> -It was dry and pleasant weather, with a sting of frost in the air, and the -propinquity of the sea manifest not in its plangent voice alone but in the -odour of it that at that hour dominated the natural smells of the -faubourgs. Only one glimpse I had of fellow creatures; as we passed the -fort, the flare of flambeaux showed an enormous body of soldiers working -upon the walls of Risebank; it but added to the poignance of my melancholy -to reflect that here were my country's enemies unsleeping, and I made a -sharp mental contrast of this most dauntening spectacle with a picture of -the house of Hazel Den dreaming among its trees, and only crying lambs -perhaps upon the moor to indicate that any life was there. Melancholy! oh, -it was eerie beyond expression for me that morning! Outside, the driver -talked to his horses and to some one with him on the boot; it must have -been cheerier for him than for me as I sat in that sombre and close -interior, jolted by my neighbour, and unable to refrain from -rehabilitating all the past. Especially did I think of my dark home-coming -with a silent father on the day I left the college to go back to the -Mearns. And by a natural correlation, that was bound to lead to all that -followed—even to the event for which I was now so miserably remote -from my people. -</p> -<p> -Once or twice his reverence woke, to thrust his head out at the window and -ask where we were. Wherever we were when he did so, *twas certain never to -be far enough for his fancy, and he condemned the driver for a snail until -the whip cracked wickedly and the horses laboured more strenuously than -ever, so that our vehicle swung upon its springs till it might well seem -we were upon a ship at sea. -</p> -<p> -For me he had but the one comment—“I wonder what's for <i>déjeuner.</i>” - He said it each time solemnly as it were his matins, and then slid into -his swinish sleep again. -</p> -<p> -The night seemed interminable, but by-and-by the day broke. I watched it -with eagerness as it gradually paled the east, and broke up the black bulk -of the surrounding land into fields, orchards, gardens, woods. And the -birds awoke—God bless the little birds!—they woke, and started -twittering and singing in the haze, surely the sweetest, the least sinless -of created things, the tiny angels of the woods, from whom, walking in -summer fields in the mornings of my age as of my youth, I have borrowed -hope and cheer. -</p> -<p> -Father Hamilton wakened too, and heard the birds; indeed, they filled the -ear of the dawn with melodies. A smile singularly pleasant came upon his -countenance as he listened. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i>” said he, “how they go on! Has't the woodland soul, <i>Sieur -Croque-mort</i>? Likely enough not; I never knew another but myself and -thine uncle that had it, and 'tis the mischief that words will not explain -the same. 'Tis a gift of the fairies”—here he crossed himself -devoutly and mumbled a Romish incantation—“that, having the said -woodland spirit—in its nature a Pagan thing perchance, but <i>n'importe!</i>—thou -hast in the song of the tiny beings choiring there something to make the -inward tremor that others find in a fiddle and a glass of wine. No! no! -not that, 'tis a million times more precious; 'tis—'tis the pang of -the devotee, 'tis the ultimate thrill of things. Myself, I could expire -upon the ecstasy of the thrush, or climb to heaven upon the lark's May -rapture. And there they go! the loves! and they have the same ditty I -heard from them first in Louvain. There are but three clean things in this -world, my lad of Scotland—a bird, a flower, and a child's laughter. -I have been confessor long enough to know all else is filth. But what's -the luck in waiting for us at Azincourt? and what's the <i>pot-au-feu</i> -to-day?” - </p> -<p> -He listened a little longer to the birds, and fell asleep smiling, his fat -face for once not amiss, and I was left again alone as it were to receive -the day. -</p> -<p> -We had long left the dunes and the side of the sea, though sometimes on -puffs of wind I heard its distant rumour. Now the land was wooded with the -apple tree; we rose high on the side of a glen, full of a rolling fog that -streamed off as the day grew. A tolerable land enough; perhaps more lush -than my own, with scarce a rood uncultivated, and dotted far and wide by -the strangest farm steadings and pendicles, but such steadings and -pendicles as these eyes never before beheld, with enormous eaves of thatch -reaching almost to the ground, and ridiculous windows of no shape; with -the yokings of the cattle, the boynes, stoups, carts, and ploughs about -the places altogether different from our own. We passed troops marching, -peasants slouching with baskets of poultry to market towns, now and then a -horseman, now and then a caleche. And there were numerous hamlets, and at -least two middling-sized towns, and finally we came, at the hour of -eleven, upon the place appointed for our <i>déjeuner</i>. It was a small -inn on the banks of the only rivulet I had seen in all the journey. I -forget its name, but I remember there was a patch of heather on the side -of it, and that I wished ardently the season had been autumn that I might -have looked upon the purple bells. -</p> -<p> -“Tis a long lane that has no tavern,” said his reverence, and oozed out of -his side of the coach with groanings. The innkeeper ran forth, louted, and -kissed his hand. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Jour, m'sieu jour!</i>” said Father Hamilton hurriedly. “And now, what -have you here that is worth while?” - </p> -<p> -The innkeeper respectfully intimated that the church of -Saint-Jean-en-Grève was generally considered worth notice. Its vestments, -relics, and windows were of merit, and the view from the tower— -</p> -<p> -“<i>Mort de ma vie!</i>” cried the priest angrily, “do I look like a -traveller who trots up belfrys in strange villages at the hour of <i>déjeuner?</i> -A plague on Saint-Jean-en-Grève! I said nothing at all of churches; I -spoke of <i>déjeuner</i>, my good fellow. What's for <i>déjeuner?</i>” - </p> -<p> -The innkeeper recounted a series of dishes. Father Hamilton hummed and -hawed, reflected, condemned, approved, all with an eagerness beyond -description. And when the meal was being dished up, he went frantically to -the kitchen and lifted pot-lids, and swung a salad for himself, and -confounding the ordinary wine for the vilest piquette ordered a special -variety from the cellar. It was a spectacle of gourmandise not without its -humour; I was so vastly engaged in watching him that I scarce glanced at -the men who had travelled on the outside of the coach since morning. -</p> -<p> -What was my amazement when I did so to see that the servant or valet (as -he turned out to be) was no other than the Swiss, Bernard, who had been in -the service of Miss Walkinshaw no later than yesterday morning! -</p> -<p> -I commented on the fact to Father Hamilton when we sat down to eat. -</p> -<p> -“Why, yes!” he said, gobbling at his vivers with a voracity I learned not -to wonder at later when I knew him more. “The same man. A good man, too, -or I'm a Turk. I've envied Miss Walkinshaw this lusty, trusty, secret -rogue for a good twelvemonth, and just on the eve of my leaving Dunkerque, -by a very providence, the fellow gets drunk and finds himself dismissed. -He came to me with a flush and a hiccough last night to ask a -recommendation, and overlooking the peccadillo that is not of a nature -confined to servants, Master Greig, let me tell thee, I gave him a place -in my <i>entourage</i>. Madame will not like it, but no matter! she'll -have time to forget it ere I see her again.” - </p> -<p> -I felt a mild satisfaction to have the Swiss with us just because I had -heard him called “Bernard” so often by his late employer. -</p> -<p> -We rested for some hours after <i>déjeuner</i>, seated under a tree by the -brink of the rivulet, and in the good humour of a man satisfied in nature -the priest condescended to let me into some of his plans. -</p> -<p> -We were bound for Paris in the first place. “Zounds!” he cried, “I am all -impatience to clap eyes again on Lutetia, the sweet rogue, and eat decent -bread and behold a noble gown and hear a right cadenza. And though thou -hast lost thy Lyrnessides—la! la! la! I have thee there!—thou -canst console thyself with the Haemonian lyre. Paris! oh, lad, I'd give -all to have thy years and a winter or two in it. Still, we shall make -shift—oh, yes! I warrant thee we shall make shift. We shall be -there, at my closest reckoning, on the second day of Holy Week, and my -health being so poorly we shall not wait to commence <i>de faire les -Pâques</i> an hour after. What's in a <i>soutane</i>, anyhow, that it -should be permitted to mortify an honest priest's oesophagus?” - </p> -<p> -I sighed in spite of myself, for he had made me think of our throwing of -Easter eggs on the green at Hazel Den. -</p> -<p> -“What!” he cried. “Does my frugal Scot fancy we have not enough trinkgeld -for enjoyment. Why, look here!—and here!—and here!” - </p> -<p> -He thrust his hand into his bosom and drew forth numerous rouleaux—so -many that I thought his corpulence might well be a plethora of coin. -</p> -<p> -“There!” said he, squeezing a rouleau till it burst and spreading out the -gold upon the table before him. “Am I a poor parish priest or a very -Croesus?” - </p> -<p> -Then he scooped in the coins with his fat hands and returned all to his -bosom. “<i>Allons!</i>” he said shortly; we were on the road again! -</p> -<p> -That night we put up at the Bon Accueil in a town whose name escapes my -recollection. -</p> -<p> -He had gone to bed; through the wall from his chamber came the noise of -his sleep, while I was at the writing of my first letter to Miss -Walkinshaw, making the same as free and almost affectionate as I had been -her lover, for as I know it now, I was but seeking in her for the face of -the love of the first woman and the last my heart was given to. -</p> -<p> -I had scarcely concluded when the Swiss came knocking softly to my door, -and handed me a letter from the very woman whose name was still in wet ink -upon my folded page. I tore it open eagerly, to find a score of pleasant -remembrances. She had learned the night before that the priest was to set -out in the morning: “I have kept my word,” she went on. “Your best friend -is Bernard, so I let you have him, and let us exchange our billets through -him. It will be the most Discreet method. And I am, with every -consideration, Ye Ken Wha.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XX -</h2> -<h3> -LEADS ME TO THE FRONT OF A COFFEE-HOUSE WHERE I AM STARTLED TO SEE A FACE -I KNOW -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he occasion for this precaution in our correspondence was beyond my -comprehension; nevertheless I was too proud to have the patronage of so -fine a woman to cavil at what system she should devise for its discreet -conduct, and the Swiss that night got my first letter to frank and -despatch. He got one next evening also, and the evening after that; in -short, I made a diurnal of each stage in our journey and Bernard was my -postman—so to name it—on every occasion that I forwarded the -same to Miss Walkinshaw. He assured me that he was in circumstances to -secure the more prompt forwardation of my epistles than if I trusted in -the common runner, and it was a proof of this that when we got, after some -days, into Versailles, he should bring to me a letter from the lady -herself informing me how much of pleasure she had got from the receipt of -the first communication I had sent her. -</p> -<p> -Perhaps it is a sign of the injudicious mind that I should not be very -mightily pleased with this same Versailles. We had come into it of a sunny -afternoon and quartered at the Cerf d'Or Inn, and went out in the evening -for the air. Somehow the place gave me an antagonism; its dipt trees all -in rows upon the wayside like a guard of soldiers; its trim gardens and -bits of plots; its fountains crying, as it seemed, for attention—these -things hurt me as a liberty taken with nature. Here, thought I, is the -fitting place for the raff in ruffles and the scented wanton; it should be -the artificial man and the insincere woman should be condemned to walk for -ever in these alleys and drink in these <i>bosquets;</i> I would not give -a fir planting black against the evening sky at home for all this pompous -play-acting at landscape, nor a yard of the brown heather of the hills for -all these well-drilled flower parterres. -</p> -<p> -“Eh! M. Croque-mort,” said the priest, delighted visibly with all he saw -about him; “what think'st thou of Le Notre's gardening?” - </p> -<p> -“A good deal, sir,” I said, “that need never be mentioned. I feel a pity -for the poor trees as I did for yon dipt poodle dog at Griepon.” - </p> -<p> -“La! la! la! <i>sots raissonable</i>, Monsieur,” cried the priest. “We -cannot have the tastes of our Dubarrys and Pompadours and Maintenons so -called in question by an untravelled Scot that knows but the rude mountain -and stunted oaks dying in a murrain of climate. 'Art too ingenuous, youth. -And yet—and yet”—here he paused and tapped his temple and -smiled whimsically—“between ourselves, I prefer the woods of Somme -where the birds sang together so jocund t'other day. But there now—ah, -<i>quelle gloire!</i>” - </p> -<p> -We had come upon the front of the palace, and its huge far-reaching -masonry, that I learned later to regard as cold, formal, and wanting in a -soul, vastly discomposed me. I do not know why it should be so, but as I -gazed at this—the greatest palace I had ever beheld—I felt -tears rush irrestrainably to my eyes. Maybe it was the poor little poet in -MacGibbon's law chamber in Lanark town that used to tenant every ancient -dwelling with spirits of the past, cropped up for the moment in Father -Hamilton's secretary, and made me, in a flash, people the place with kings—and -realise something of the wrench it must have been and still would be to -each and all of them to say adieu at the long last to this place of noisy -grandeur where they had had their time of gaiety and splendour. Anyhow, I -well-nigh wept, and the priest was quick to see it. -</p> -<p> -“Fore God!” he cried, “here's Andrew Greig again! 'Twas the wickedest -rogue ever threw dice, and yet the man must rain at the eyes like a very -woman.” - </p> -<p> -And yet he was pleased, I thought, to see me touched. A band was playing -somewhere in a garden unseen; he tapped time to its music with his finger -tips against each other and smiled beatifically and hummed. He seemed at -peace with the world and himself at that moment, yet a second later he was -the picture of distress and apprehension. -</p> -<p> -We were going towards the Place d'Armes; he had, as was customary, his arm -through mine, leaning on me more than was comfortable, for he was the -poorest judge imaginable of his own corpulence. Of a sudden I felt him -jolt as if he had been startled, and then he gripped my arm with a nervous -grasp. All that was to account for his perturbation was that among the few -pedestrians passing us on the road was one in a uniform who cast a rapid -glance at us. It was not wonderful that he should do so, for indeed we -were a singularly ill-assorted pair, but there was a recognition of the -priest in the glance the man in the uniform threw at him in passing. -Nothing was said; the man went on his way and we on ours, but looking at -Father Hamilton I saw his face had lost its colour and grown blotched in -patches. His hand trembled; for the rest of the walk he was silent, and he -could not too soon hurry us back to the Cerf d'Or. -</p> -<p> -Next day was Sunday, and Father Hamilton went to Mass leaving me to my own -affairs, that were not of that complexion perhaps most becoming on that -day to a lad from Scotland. He came back anon and dressed most -scrupulously in a suit of lay clothing. -</p> -<p> -“Come out, Master Greig,” said he, “and use thine eyes for a poor priest -that has ruined his own in studying the Fathers and seeking for honesty.” - </p> -<p> -“It is not in the nature of a compliment to myself, that,” I said, a -little tired of his sour sentiments regarding humanity, and not afraid in -the least to tell him so. -</p> -<p> -“Eh!” said he. “I spoke not of thee, thou savage. A plague on thy curt -temper; 'twas ever the weakness of the Greigs. Come, and I shall show thee -a house where thy uncle and I had many a game of dominoes.” - </p> -<p> -We went to a coffee-house and watched the fashionable world go by. It was -a sight monstrously fine. Because it was the Easter Sunday the women had -on their gayest apparel, the men their most belaced <i>jabots</i>. -</p> -<p> -“Now look you well, Friend Scotland,” said Father Hamilton, as we sat at a -little table and watched the stream of quality pass, “look you well and -watch particularly every gentleman that passes to the right, and when you -see one you know tell me quickly.” - </p> -<p> -He had dropped his Roman manner as if in too sober a mood to act. -</p> -<p> -“Is it a game?” I asked. “Who can I ken in the town of Versailles that -never saw me here before?” - </p> -<p> -“Never mind,” said he, “do as I tell you. A sharp eye, and-” - </p> -<p> -“Why,” I cried, “there's a man I have seen before!” - </p> -<p> -“Where? where?” said Father Hamilton, with the utmost interest lighting -his countenance. -</p> -<p> -“Yonder, to the left of the man with the velvet breeches. He will pass us -in a minute or two.” - </p> -<p> -The person I meant would have been kenspeckle in any company by the -splendour of his clothing, but beyond his clothing there was a haughtiness -in his carriage that singled him out even among the fashionables of -Versailles, who were themselves obviously interested in his personality, -to judge by the looks that they gave him as closely as breeding permitted. -He came sauntering along the pavement swinging a cane by its tassel, his -chin in the air, his eyes anywhere but on the crowds that parted to give -him room. As he came closer I saw it was a handsome face enough that thus -was cocked in haughtiness to the heavens, not unlike Clancarty's in that -it showed the same signs of dissipation, yet with more of native nobility -in it than was in the good enough countenance of the French-Irish -nobleman. Where had I seen that face before? -</p> -<p> -It must have been in Scotland; it must have been when I was a boy; it was -never in the Mearns. This was a hat with a Dettingen cock; when I saw that -forehead last it was under a Highland bonnet. -</p> -<p> -A Highland bonnet—why! yes, and five thousand Highland bonnets were -in its company—whom had I here but Prince Charles Edward! -</p> -<p> -The recognition set my heart dirling in my breast, for there was enough of -the rebel in me to feel a romantic glow at seeing him who set Scotland in -a blaze, and was now the stuff of songs our women sang in milking folds -among the hills; that heads had fallen for, and the Hebrides had been -searched for in vain for weary seasons. The man was never a hero of mine -so long as I had the cooling influence of my father to tell me how -lamentable for Scotland had been his success had God permitted the same, -yet I was proud to-day to see him. -</p> -<p> -“Is it he?” asked the priest, dividing his attention between me and the -approaching nobleman. -</p> -<p> -“It's no other,” said I. “I would know Prince Charles in ten thousand, -though I saw him but the once in a rabble of caterans coming up the -Gallow-gate of Glasgow.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah,” said the priest, with a curious sighing sound. “They said he passed -here at the hour. And that's our gentleman, is it? I expected he would -have been—would have been different.” When the Prince was opposite -the café where we sat he let his glance come to earth, and it fell upon -myself. His aspect changed; there was something of recognition in it; -though he never slackened his pace and was gazing the next moment down the -vista of the street, I knew that his glance had taken me in from head to -heel, and that I was still the object of his thoughts. -</p> -<p> -“You see! you see!” cried the priest, “I was right, and he knew the Greig. -Why, lad, shalt have an Easter egg for this—the best horologe in -Versailles upon Monday morning.” - </p> -<p> -“Why, how could he know me?” I asked. “It is an impossibility, for when he -and I were in the same street last he rode a horse high above an army and -I was only a raw laddie standing at a close-mouth in Duff's Land in the -Gallowgate.” - </p> -<p> -But all the same I felt the priest was right, and that there was some sort -of recognition in the Prince's glance at me in passing. -</p> -<p> -Father Hamilton poured himself a generous glass and drank thirstily. -</p> -<p> -“La! la! la!” said he, resuming his customary manner of address. “I -daresay his Royal Highness has never clapt eyes on thy <i>croque-mori</i> -countenance before, but he has seen its like—ay, and had a regard -for it, too! Thine Uncle Andrew has done the thing for thee again; the -mole, the hair, the face, the shoes—sure they advertise the Greig as -by a drum tuck! and Charles Edward knew thy uncle pretty well so I -supposed he would know thee. And this is my gentleman, is it? Well, well! -No, not at all well; mighty ill indeed. Not the sort of fellow I had -looked for at all. Seems a harmless man enough, and has tossed many a -goblet in the way of company. If he had been a sour whey-face now—” - </p> -<p> -Father Hamilton applied himself most industriously to the bottle that -afternoon, and it was not long till the last of my respect for him was -gone. Something troubled him. He was moody and hilarious by turns, but -neither very long, and completed my distrust of him when he intimated that -there was some possibility of our trip across Europe never coming into -effect. But all the same, I was to be assured of his patronage, I was to -continue in his service as secretary, if, as was possible, he should take -up his residence for a time in Paris. And money—why, look again! he -had a ship's load of it, and 'twould never be said of Father Hamilton that -he could not share with a friend. And there he thrust some rouleaux upon -me and clapped my shoulder and was so affected at his own love for Andrew -Greig's nephew that he must even weep. -</p> -<p> -Weeping indeed was the priest's odd foible for the week we remained at -Versailles. He that had been so jocular before was now filled with morose -moods, and would ruminate over his bottle by the hour at a time. -</p> -<p> -He was none the better for the company he met during our stay at the Cerf -d'Or—all priests, and to the number of half a dozen, one of them an -abbé with a most noble and reverent countenance. They used to come to him -late at night, confer with him secretly in his room, and when they were -gone I found him each time drenched in a perspiration and feverishly -gulping spirits. -</p> -<p> -Every day we went to the café where we had seen the Prince first, and -every day at the same hour we saw his Royal Highness, who, it appeared, -was not known to the world as such, though known to me. The sight of him -seemed to trouble Father Hamilton amazingly, and yet 'twas the grand -object of the day—its only diversion; when we had seen the Prince we -went back straight to the inn every afternoon. -</p> -<p> -The Cerf d'Or had a courtyard, cobbled with rough stones, in which there -was a great and noisy traffic. In the midst of the court there was a -little clump of evergreen trees and bushes in tubs, round which were -gathered a few tables and chairs whereat—now that the weather was -mild—the world sat in the afternoon. The walls about were covered -with dusty ivy where sparrows had begun to busy themselves with love and -housekeeping; lilacs sprouted into green, and the porter of the house was -for ever scratching at the hard earth about the plants, and tying up twigs -and watering the pots. It was here I used to write my letters to Miss -Walkinshaw at a little table separate from the rest, and I think it was on -Friday I was at this pleasant occupation when I looked up to see the man -with the uniform gazing at me from the other side of the bushes as if he -were waiting to have the letter when I was done with it. -</p> -<p> -I went in and asked Father Hamilton who this man was. -</p> -<p> -“What!” he cried in a great disturbance, “the same as we met near the -Trianon! O Lord! Paul, there is something wrong, for that was Buhot.” - </p> -<p> -“And this Buhot?” I asked. -</p> -<p> -“A police inspector. There is no time to lose. Monsieur Greig, I want you -to do an office for me. Here is a letter that must find its way into the -hands of the Prince. You will give it to him. You have seen that he passes -the café at the same hour every day. Well, it is the easiest thing in the -world for you to go up to him and hand him this. No more's to be done by -you.” - </p> -<p> -“But why should I particularly give him the letter? Why not send it by the -Swiss?” - </p> -<p> -“That is my affair,” cried the priest testily. “The Prince knows you—that -is important. He knows the Swiss too, and that is why I have the Swiss -with me as a second string to my bow, but I prefer that he should have -this letter from the hand of M. Andrew Greig's nephew. 'Tis a letter from -his Royal Highness's most intimate friend.” - </p> -<p> -I took the letter into my hand, and was amazed to see that the address was -in a writing exactly corresponding to that of a billet now in the bosom of -my coat! -</p> -<p> -What could Miss Walkinshaw and the Prince have of correspondence to be -conducted on such roundabout lines? Still, if the letter was hers I must -carry it! -</p> -<p> -“Very well,” I agreed, and went out to meet the Prince. -</p> -<p> -The sun was blazing; the street was full of the quality in their summer -clothing. His Royal Highness came stepping along at the customary hour -more gay than ever. I made bold to call myself to his attention with my -hat in my hand. “I beg your Royal Highness's pardon,” I said in English, -“but I have been instructed to convey this letter to you.” - </p> -<p> -He swept his glance over me; pausing longest of all on my red shoes, and -took the letter from my hand. He gave a glance at the direction, reddened, -and bit his lip. -</p> -<p> -“Let me see now, what is the name of the gentleman who does me the -honour?” - </p> -<p> -“Greig,” I answered. “Paul Greig.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah!” he cried, “of course: I have had friends in Monsieur's family. <i>Charmé, -Monsieur, de faire votre connaissance</i>. M. Andrew Greig-” - </p> -<p> -“Was my uncle, your Royal Highness?” - </p> -<p> -“So! a dear fellow, but, if I remember rightly, with a fatal gift of -irony. 'Tis a quality to be used with tact. I hope you have tact, M. -Greig. Your good uncle once did me the honour to call me a—what was -it now?—a gomeral.” - </p> -<p> -“It was very like my uncle, that, your Royal Highness,” I said. “But I -know that he loved you and your cause.” - </p> -<p> -“I daresay he did, Monsieur; I daresay he did,” said the Prince, flushing, -and with a show of pleasure at my speech. “I have learned of late that the -fair tongue is not always the friendliest. In spite of it all I liked M. -Andrew Greig. I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing Monsieur Greig's -nephew soon again. <i>Au plaisir de vous revoir!</i>” And off he went, -putting the letter, unread, into his pocket. -</p> -<p> -When I went back to the Cerf d'Or and told Hamilton all that had passed, -he was straightway plunged into the most unaccountable melancholy. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXI -</h2> -<h3> -THE ATTEMPT ON THE PRINCE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">A</span>nd now I come to an affair of which there have been many accounts -written, some of them within a mile or two of the truth, the most but -sheer romantics. I have in my mind notably the account of the officer -Buhot printed two years after the events in question, in which he makes -the most fabulous statement as to the valiancy of Father Hamilton's stand -in the private house in the Rue des Reservoirs, and maintains that myself—<i>le -fier Eccossais</i>, as he is flattering enough to designate me—drew -my sword upon himself and threatened to run him through for his -proposition that I should confess to a complicity in the attempt upon his -Royal Highness. I have seen his statement reproduced with some extra -ornament in the <i>Edinburgh Courant</i>, and the result of all this is -that till this day my neighbours give me credit, of which I am loth to -advantage myself, for having felled two or three of the French officers -before I was overcome at the hinder-end. -</p> -<p> -The matter is, in truth, more prosaic as it happened, and if these -memorials of mine leave the shadow of a doubt in the minds of any -interested in an old story that created some stir in its time, I pray them -see the archives of M. Bertin, the late Lieut.-General of the police. -Bertin was no particular friend of mine, that had been the unconscious -cause of great trouble and annoyance to him, but he has the truth in the -deposition I made and signed prior to my appointment to a company of the -d'Auvergne regiment. -</p> -<p> -Well, to take matters in their right order, it was the evening of the day -I had given the letter to the Prince that Father Hamilton expressed his -intention of passing that night in the house of a friend. -</p> -<p> -I looked at him with manifest surprise, for he had been at the bottle most -of the afternoon, and was by now more in a state for his bed than for -going among friends. -</p> -<p> -“Well,” he cried peevishly, observing my dubiety. “Do you think me too -drunk for the society of a parcel of priests? <i>Ma foi!</i> it is a -pretty thing that I cannot budge from my ordinary habitude of things -without a stuck owl setting up a silent protest.” - </p> -<p> -To a speech so wanting in dignity I felt it better there should be no -reply, and instead I helped him into his great-coat. As I did so, he made -an awkward lurching movement due to his corpulence, and what jumped out of -an inner pocket but a pistol? Which of us was the more confused at that it -would be hard to say. For my part, the weapon—that I had never seen -in his possession before—was a fillip to my sleeping conscience; I -picked it up with a distaste, and he took it from me with trembling -fingers and an averted look. -</p> -<p> -“A dangerous place, Versailles, after dark,” he explained feebly. “One -never knows, one never knows,” and into his pocket hurriedly with it. -</p> -<p> -“I shall be back for breakfast,” he went on. “Unless—unless—oh, -I certainly shall be back.” And off he set. -</p> -<p> -The incident of the pistol disturbed me for a while. I made a score of -speculations as to why a fat priest should burden himself with such an -article, and finally concluded that it was as he suggested, to defend -himself from night birds if danger offered; though that at the time had -been the last thing I myself would have looked for in the well-ordered -town of Versailles. I sat in the common-room or <i>salle</i> of the inn -for a while after he had gone, and thereafter retired to my own -bedchamber, meaning to read or write for an hour or two before going to -bed. In the priest's room—which was on the same landing and next to -my own—I heard the whistle of Bernard the Swiss, but I had no -letters for him that evening, and we did not meet each other. I was at -first uncommon dull, feeling more than usually the hame-wae that must have -been greatly wanting in the experience of my Uncle Andrew to make him for -so long a wanderer on the face of the earth. But there is no condition of -life so miserable but what one finds in it remissions, diversions, nay, -and delights also, and soon I was—of all things in the world to be -doing when what followed came to pass!—inditing a song to a lady, my -quill scratching across the paper in spurts and dashes, and baffled pauses -where the matter would not attend close enough on the mood, stopping -altogether at a stanza's end to hum the stuff over to myself with great -satisfaction. I was, as I say, in the midst of this; the Swiss had gone -downstairs; all in my part of the house was still, though vehicles moved -about in the courtyard, when unusually noisy footsteps sounded on the -stair, with what seemed like the tap of scabbards on the treads. -</p> -<p> -It was a sound so strange that my hand flew by instinct to the small sword -I was now in the habit of wearing and had learned some of the use of from -Thurot. -</p> -<p> -There was no knock for entrance; the door was boldly opened and four -officers with Buhot at their head were immediately in the room. -</p> -<p> -Buhot intimated in French that I was to consider myself under arrest, and -repeated the same in indifferent English that there might be no mistake -about a fact as patent as that the sword was in his hand. -</p> -<p> -For a moment I thought the consequence of my crime had followed me abroad, -and that this squat, dark officer, watching me with the scrutiny of a -forest animal, partly in a dread that my superior bulk should endanger -himself, was in league with the law of my own country. That I should after -all be dragged back in chains to a Scots gallows was a prospect -unendurable; I put up the ridiculous small sword and dared him to lay a -hand on me. But I had no sooner done so than its folly was apparent, and I -laid the weapon down. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Tant mieux!</i>” said he, much relieved, and then an assurance that he -knew I was a gentleman of discretion and would not make unnecessary -trouble. “Indeed,” he went on, “<i>Voyez!</i> I take these men away; I -have the infinite trust in Monsieur; Monsieur and I shall settle this -little affair between us.” - </p> -<p> -And he sent his friends to the foot of the stair. -</p> -<p> -“Monsieur may compose himself,” he assured me with a profound inclination. -</p> -<p> -“I am very much obliged to you,” I said, seating myself on the corner of -the table and crushing my poor verses into my pocket as I did so, “I am -very much obliged to you, but I'm at a loss to understand to what I owe -the honour.” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed!” he said, also seating himself on the table to show, I supposed, -that he was on terms of confidence with his prisoner. “Monsieur is Father -Hamilton's secretary?” - </p> -<p> -“So I believe,” I said; “at least I engaged for the office that's -something of a sinecure, to tell the truth.” - </p> -<p> -And then Buhot told me a strange story. -</p> -<p> -He told me that Father Hamilton was now a prisoner, and on his way to the -prison of Bicêtre. He was—this Buhot—something of the artist -and loved to make his effects most telling (which accounts, no doubt, for -the romantical nature of the accounts aforesaid), and sitting upon the -table-edge he embarked upon a narrative of the most crowded two hours that -had perhaps been in Father Hamilton's lifetime. -</p> -<p> -It seemed that when the priest had left the Cerf d'Or, he had gone to a -place till recently called the Bureau des Carrosses pour la Rochelle, and -now unoccupied save by a concierge, and the property of some person or -persons unknown. There he had ensconced himself in the only habitable room -and waited for a visitor regarding whom the concierge had his -instructions. -</p> -<p> -“You must imagine him,” said the officer, always with the fastidiousness -of an artist for his effects, “you must imagine him, Monsieur, sitting in -this room, all alone, breathing hard, with a pistol before him on the -table, and—” - </p> -<p> -“What! a pistol!” I cried, astounded and alarmed. “<i>Certainement</i>” - said Buhot, charmed with the effect his dramatic narrative was creating. -“Your friend, <i>mon ami</i>, would be little good, I fancy, with a -rapier. Anyway, 'twas a pistol. A carriage drives up to the door; the -priest rises to his feet with the pistol in his hand; there is the rap at -the door. '<i>Entrez!</i>' cries the priest, cocking the pistol, and no -sooner was his visitor within than he pulled the trigger; the explosion -rang through the dwelling; the chamber was full of smoke.” - </p> -<p> -“Good heavens!” I cried in horror, “and who was the unhappy wretch?” - </p> -<p> -Buhot shrugged his shoulders, made a French gesture with his hands, and -pursed his mouth. -</p> -<p> -“Whom did you invite to the room at the hour of ten, M. Greig?” he asked. -</p> -<p> -“Invite!” I cried. “It's your humour to deal in parables. I declare to you -I invited no one.” - </p> -<p> -“And yet, my good sir, you are Hamilton's secretary and you are Hamilton's -envoy. 'Twas you handed to the Prince the <i>poulet</i> that was designed -to bring him to his fate.” - </p> -<p> -My instinct grasped the situation in a second; I had been the ignorant -tool of a madman; the whole events of the past week made the fact plain, -and I was for the moment stunned. -</p> -<p> -Buhot watched me closely, and not unkindly, I can well believe, from what -I can recall of our interview and all that followed after it. -</p> -<p> -“And you tell me he killed the Prince?” I cried at last. -</p> -<p> -“No, Monsieur,” said Buhot; “I am happy to say he did not. The Prince was -better advised than to accept the invitation you sent to him.” - </p> -<p> -“Still,” I cried with remorse, “there's a man dead, and 'tis as much as -happens when princes themselves are clay.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Parfaitement</i>, Monsieur, though it is indiscreet to shout it here. -Luckily there is no one at all dead in this case, otherwise it had been -myself, for I was the man who entered to the priest and received his -pistol fire. It was not the merriest of duties either,” he went on, always -determined I should lose no iota of the drama, “for the priest might have -discovered before I got there that the balls of his pistol had been -abstracted.” - </p> -<p> -“Then Father Hamilton has been under watch?” - </p> -<p> -“Since ever you set foot in Versailles last Friday,” said Buhot -complacently. “The Damiens affair has sharpened our wits, I warrant you.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, sir,” I said, “let me protest that I have been till this moment in -utter darkness about Hamilton's character or plans. I took him for what he -seemed—a genial buffoon of a kind with more gear than guidance.” - </p> -<p> -“We cannot, with infinite regret, assume that, Monsieur, but personally I -would venture a suggestion,” said Buhot, coming closer on the table and -assuming an affable air. “In this business, Hamilton is a tool—no -more; and a poor one at that, badly wanting the grindstone. To break him—phew!—'twere -as easy as to break a glass, but he is one of a great movement and the man -we seek is his master—one Father Fleuriau of the Jesuits. Hamilton's -travels were but part of a great scheme that has sent half a dozen of his -kind chasing the Prince in the past year or two from Paris to Amsterdam, -from Amsterdam to Orleans, from Orleans to Hamburg, Seville, Lisbon, Rome, -Brussels, Potsdam, Nuremburg, Berlin. The same hand that extracted his -bullets tapped the priest's portfolio and found the wretch was in promise -of a bishopric and a great sum of money. You see, M. Greig, I am curiously -frank with my prisoner.” - </p> -<p> -“And no doubt you have your reasons,” said I, but beat, myself, to imagine -what they could be save that he might have proofs of my innocence. -</p> -<p> -“Very well,” said M. Buhot. “To come to the point, it is this, that we -desire to have the scheme of the Jesuits for the Prince's assassination, -and other atrocities shocking to all that revere the divinity of princes, -crumbled up. Father Hamilton is at the very roots of the secret; if, say, -a gentleman so much in his confidence as yourself—now, if such a one -were, say, to share a cell with this regicide for a night or two, and -pursue judicious inquiries——” - </p> -<p> -“Stop! stop!” I cried, my blood hammering in my head, and the words like -to choke me. “Am I to understand that you would make me your spy and -informer upon this miserable old madman that has led me such a gowk's -errand?” - </p> -<p> -Buhot slid back off the table edge and on to his feet. “Oh,” said he, “the -terms are not happily chosen: 'spy'—'informer'—come, Monsieur -Greig; this man is in all but the actual accomplishment of his purpose an -assassin. 'Tis the duty of every honest man to help in discovering the -band of murderers whose tool he has been.” - </p> -<p> -“Then I'm no honest man, M. Buhot,” said I bitterly, “for I've no stomach -for a duty so dirty.” - </p> -<p> -“Think of it for a moment,” he pressed, with evident surprise at my -decision. “Bicêtre is an unwholesome hostelry, I give you my word. -Consider that your choice is between a night or two there and—who -knows?—a lifetime of Galbanon that is infinitely worse.” - </p> -<p> -“Then let it be Galbanon!” I said, and lifted my sword and slapped it -furiously, sheathed as it was, like a switch upon the table. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/198.jpg" alt="198" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -Buhot leaped back in a fear that I was to attack him, and cried his men -from the stair foot. -</p> -<p> -“This force is not needed at all,” I said. “I am innocent enough to be -prepared to go quietly.” - </p> - -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXII -</h2> -<h3> -OF A NIGHT JOURNEY AND BLACK BICETRE AT THE END OF IT -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>was a long journey to the prison of Bicêtre, which is two miles to the -south of the city of Paris, a great building that had once (they say) been -a palace, but now in the time of my experience was little better than a -vestibule of hell. I was driven to it through a black loud night of rain, -a plunging troop of horse on either hand the coach as if I were a -traveller of state, and Buhot in front of me as silent as the priest had -been the day we left Dunkerque, though wakeful, and the tip of his -scabbard leaning on my boot to make sure that in the darkness no movement -of mine should go unobserved. -</p> -<p> -The trees swung and roared in the wind; the glass lozens of the carriage -pattered to the pelting showers; sometimes we lurched horribly in the ruts -of the highway, and were released but after monstrous efforts on the part -of the cavaliers. Once, as we came close upon a loop of a brawling river, -I wished with all fervency that we might fall in, and so end for ever this -pitiful coil of trials whereto fate had obviously condemned poor Paul -Greig. To die among strangers (as is widely known) is counted the saddest -of deaths by our country people, and so, nowadays, it would seem to -myself, but there and then it appeared an enviable conclusion to the -Spoiled Horn that had blundered from folly to folly. To die there and then -would be to leave no more than a regret and an everlasting wonder in the -folks at home; to die otherwise, as seemed my weird, upon a block or -gallows, would be to foul the name of my family for generations, and I -realised in my own person the agony of my father when he got the news, and -I bowed my shoulders in the coach below the shame that he would feel as in -solemn blacks he walked through the Sabbath kirkyard in summers to come in -Mearns, with the knowledge that though neighbours looked not at him but -with kindness, their inmost thoughts were on the crimson chapter of his -son. -</p> -<p> -Well, we came at the long last to Bicêtre, and I was bade alight in the -flare of torches. A strange, a memorable scene; it will never leave me. -Often I remit me there in dreams. When I came out of the conveyance the -lights dazzled me, and Buhot put his hands upon my shoulders and turned me -without a word in the direction he wished me to take. It was through a -vast and frowning doorway that led into a courtyard so great that the -windows on the other side seemed to be the distance of a field. The -windows were innumerable, and though the hour was late they were lit in -stretching corridors. Fires flamed in corners of the yard—great -leaping fires round which warders (as I guessed them) gathered to dry -themselves or get warmth against the chill of the early April morning. -Their scabbards or their muskets glittered now and then in the light of -the flames; their voices—restrained by the presence of Buhot—sounded -deep and dreadful to me that knew not the sum of his iniquity yet could -shudder at the sense of what portended. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/203.jpg" alt="203" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -It were vain for me to try and give expression to my feeling as I went -past these fires across the stony yard, and entered between a guard or two -at the other side. At the root of my horror was the sentiment that all was -foreign, that I was no more to these midnight monsters round their -torturing flames than a creature of the wood, less, perhaps, for were they -not at sworn war with my countrymen, and had not I a share at least of the -repute of regicide? And when, still led by the silent officer, I entered -the building itself and walked through an unending corridor broken at -intervals by black doors and little barred borrowed lights, and heard -sometimes a moan within, or a shriek far off in another part of the -building, I experienced something of that long swound that is insanity. -Then I was doomed for the rest of my brief days to be among these unhappy -wretches—the victims of the law or political vengeance, the <i>forçat</i> -who had thieved, or poisoned, perjured himself, or taken human blood! -</p> -<p> -At last we came to a door, where Buhot stopped me and spoke, for the first -time, almost, since we had left Versailles. He put his hand out to check a -warder who was going to open the cell for my entrance. -</p> -<p> -“I am not a hard man, M. Greig,” said he, in a stumbling English, “and -though this is far beyond my duties, and, indeed, contrary to the same, I -would give you another chance. We shall have, look you, our friend the -priest in any case, and to get the others is but a matter of time. 'Tis a -good citizen helps the law always; you must have that respect for the law -that you should feel bound to circumvent those who would go counter to it -with your cognisance.” - </p> -<p> -“My good man,” I said, as quietly as I could, and yet internally with -feelings like to break me, “I have already said my say. If the tow was -round my thrapple I would say no more than that I am innocent of any plot -against a man by whose family mine have lost, and that I myself, for all -my loyalty to my country, would do much to serve as a private individual.” - </p> -<p> -“Consider,” he pleaded. “After all, this Hamilton may be a madman with -nothing at all to tell that will help us.” - </p> -<p> -“But the bargain is to be that I must pry and I must listen,” said I, “and -be the tale-pyat whose work may lead to this poor old buffoon's and many -another's slaughtering. Not I, M. Buhot, and thank ye kindly! It's no' -work for one of the Greigs of Hazel Den.” - </p> -<p> -“I fear you do not consider all,” he said patiently—so patiently -indeed that I wondered at him. “I will show you to what you are condemned -even before your trial, before you make up your mind irrevocably to refuse -this very reasonable request of ours,” and he made a gesture that caused -the warder to open the door so that I could see within. -</p> -<p> -There was no light of its own in the cell, but it borrowed wanly a little -of the radiance of the corridor, and I could see that it was bare to the -penury of a mausoleum, with a stone floor, a wooden palliasse, and no -window other than a barred hole above the door. There was not even a stool -to sit on. But I did not quail. -</p> -<p> -“I have been in more comfortable quarters, M. Buhot,” I said, “but in none -that I could occupy with a better conscience.” Assuming with that a sort -of bravado, I stepped in before he asked me. -</p> -<p> -“Very good,” he cried; “but I cannot make you my felicitations on your -decision, M. Greig,” and without more ado he had the door shut on me. -</p> -<p> -I sat on the woollen palliasse for a while, with my head on my hands, -surrendered all to melancholy; and then, though the thing may seem beyond -belief, I stretched myself and slept till morning. It was not the most -refreshing of sleep, but still 'twas wonderful that I should sleep at all -in such circumstances, and I take it that a moorland life had been a -proper preparation for just such trials. -</p> -<p> -When I wakened in the morning the prison seemed full of eerie noises—of -distant shrieks as in a bedlam, and commanding voices, and of ringing -metals, the clank of fetters, or the thud of musket-butts upon the stones. -A great beating of feet was in the yard, as if soldiers were manoeuvring, -and it mastered me to guess what all this might mean, until a warder -opened my door and ordered me out for an airing. -</p> -<p> -I mind always of a parrot at a window. -</p> -<p> -This window was one that looked into the yard from some official's -dwelling in that dreadful place, and the bird occupied a great cage that -was suspended from a nail outside. -</p> -<p> -The bird, high above the rabble of rogues in livery, seemed to have a -devilish joy in the spectacle of the misery tramping round and round -beneath, for it clung upon the bars and thrust out its head to whistle, as -if in irony, or taunt us with a foul song. There was one air it had, -expressed so clearly that I picked up air and words with little -difficulty, and the latter ran something like this: -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -Ah! ah! Pierrot, Pierrot! -Fais ta toilette, -Voila le barbier! oh! oh! -Et sa charrette— -</pre> -<p> -all in the most lugubrious key. -</p> -<p> -And who were we that heard that reference to the axe? We were the scum, -the <i>sordes</i>, the rot of France. There was, doubtless, no crime -before the law of the land, no outrage against God and man, that had not -here its representative. We were not men, but beasts, cut off from every -pleasant—every clean and decent association, the visions of sin -always behind the peering eyes, the dreams of vice and crime for ever -fermenting in the low brows. I felt 'twas the forests we should be -frequenting—the forests of old, the club our weapon, the cave our -habitation; no song ours, nor poem, no children to infect with fondness, -no women to smile at in the light of evening lamps. The forest—the -cave—the animal! What were we but children of the outer dark, -condemned from the start of time, our faces ground hard against the -flints, our feet bogged in hag and mire? -</p> -<p> -There must have been several hundreds of the convicts in the yard, and yet -I was told later that it was not a fourth of the misery that Bicêtre held, -and that scores were leaving weekly for the <i>bagnes</i>—the hulks -at Toulon and at Brest—while others took their places. -</p> -<p> -Every man wore a uniform—a coarse brown jacket, vast wide breeches -of the same hue, a high sugar-loaf cap and wooden shoes—all except -some privileged, whereof I was one—and we were divided into gangs, -each gang with its warders—tall grenadiers with their muskets ready. -</p> -<p> -Round and round and across and across we marched in the great quadrangle, -every man treading the rogues' measure with leg-weary reluctance, many -cursing their warders under breath, most scowling, all hopeless and all -lost. -</p> -<p> -'Twas the exercise of the day. -</p> -<p> -As we slouched through that mad ceremony in the mud of the yard, with rain -still drizzling on us, the parrot in its cage had a voice loud and shrill -above the commands of the grenadiers and officers; sang its taunting song, -or whistled like a street boy, a beast so free, so careless and remote, -that I had a fancy it had the only soul in the place. -</p> -<p> -As I say, we were divided into gangs, each gang taking its own course back -and forward in the yard as its commander ordered. The gang I was with -marched a little apart from the rest. We were none of us in this gang in -the ugly livery of the prison, but in our own clothing, and we were, it -appeared, allowed that privilege because we were yet to try. I knew no -reason for the distinction at the time, nor did I prize it very much, for -looking all about the yard—at the officers, the grenadiers, and -other functionaries of the prison, I failed to see a single face I knew. -What could I conclude but that Buhot was gone and that I was doomed to be -forgotten here? -</p> -<p> -It would have been a comfort even to have got a glimpse of Father -Hamilton, the man whose machinations were the cause of my imprisonment, -but Father Hamilton, if he had been taken here as Buhot had suggested, was -not, at all events, in view. -</p> -<p> -After the morning's exercise we that were the privileged were taken to -what was called the <i>salle dépreuve</i>, and with three or four to each -<i>gamelle</i> or mess-tub, ate a scurvy meal of a thin soup and black -bread and onions. To a man who had been living for a month at heck and -manger, as we say, this might naturally seem unpalatable fare, but truth -to tell I ate it with a relish that had been all the greater had it been -permitted me to speak to any of my fellow sufferers. But speech was -strictly interdict and so our meal was supped in silence. -</p> -<p> -When it was over I was to be fated for the pleasantest of surprises! -</p> -<p> -There came to me a sous-officer of the grenadiers. -</p> -<p> -In French he asked if I was Monsieur Greig. I said as best I could in the -same tongue that I was that unhappy person at his service. Then, said he, -“Come with me.” He led me into a hall about a hundred feet long that had -beds or mattresses for about three hundred people. The room was empty, as -those who occupied it were, he said, at Mass. Its open windows in front -looked into another courtyard from that in which we had been exercising, -while the windows at the rear looked into a garden where already lilac was -in bloom and daffodillies endowed the soil of a few mounds with the colour -of the gold. On the other side of the court first named there was a huge -building. “Galbanon,” said my guide, pointing to it, and then made me -understand that the same was worse by far than the Bastille, and at the -moment full of Marquises, Counts, Jesuits, and other clergymen, many of -them in irons for abusing or writing against the Marchioness de Pompadour. -</p> -<p> -I listened respectfully and waited Monsieur's explanation. It was manifest -I had not been brought into this hall for the good of my education, and -naturally I concluded the name of Galbanon, that I had heard already from -Buhot, with its villainous reputation, was meant to terrify me into a -submission to what had been proposed. The moment after a hearty meal—even -of <i>soup maigre</i>—was not, however, the happiest of times to -work upon a Greig's feelings of fear or apprehension, and so I waited, -very dour within upon my resolution though outwardly in the most -complacent spirit. -</p> -<p> -The hall was empty when we entered as I have said, but we had not been -many minutes in it when the tramp of men returning to it might be heard, -and this hurried my friend the officer to his real business. -</p> -<p> -He whipped a letter from his pocket and put it in my hand with a sign to -compel secrecy on my part. It may be readily believed I was quick enough -to conceal the missive. He had no cause to complain of the face I turned -upon another officer who came up to us, for 'twas a visage of clownish -vacuity. -</p> -<p> -The duty of the second officer, it appeared, was to take me to a new cell -that had been in preparation for me, and when I got there it was with -satisfaction I discovered it more than tolerable, with a sufficiency of -air and space, a good light from the quadrangle, a few books, paper, and a -writing standish. -</p> -<p> -When the door had been shut upon me, I turned to open my letter and found -there was in fact a couple of them—a few lines from her ladyship in -Dunkerque expressing her continued interest in my welfare and adventures, -and another from the Swiss through whom the first had come. He was still—said -the honest Bernard—at my service, having eluded the vigilance of -Buhot, who doubtless thought a lackey scarce worth his hunting, and he was -still in a position to post my letters, thanks to the goodwill of the -sous-officer who was a relative. Furthermore, he was in hopes that Miss -Walkinshaw, who was on terms of intimacy with the great world and -something of an <i>intriguante</i>, would speedily take steps to secure my -freedom. “Be tranquil, dear Monsieur!” concluded the brave fellow, and I -was so exceedingly comforted and inspired by these matters that I -straightway sat down to the continuation of my journal for Miss -Walkinshaw's behoof. I had scarce dipped the pen, when my cell door opened -and gave entrance to the man who was the cause of my incarceration. -</p> -<p> -The door shut and locked behind him; it was Father Hamilton! -</p> -<p> -It was indeed Father Hamilton, by all appearance none the worse in body -for his violent escapade, so weighty with the most fatal possibilities for -himself, for he advanced to me almost gaily, his hand extended and his -face red and smiling. -</p> -<p> -“Scotland! to my heart!” cries he in the French, and throws his arms about -me before I could resist, and kisses me on the cheeks after the amusing -fashion of his nation. “La! la! la! Paul,” he cried, “I'd have wanted -three breakfasts sooner than miss this meeting with my good secretary lad -that is the lovablest rogue never dipped a pen in his master's service. -Might have been dead for all I knew, and run through by a brutal rapier, -victim of mine own innocence. But here's my Paul, <i>pardieu!</i> I would -as soon have my <i>croque-mort</i> now as that jolly dog his uncle, that -never waked till midnight or slept till the dull, uninteresting noon in -the years when we went roving. What! Paul! Paul Greig! my <i>croque-mort!</i> -my Don Dolorous!—oh, Lord, my child, I am the most miserable of -wretches!” - </p> -<p> -And there he let me go, and threw himself upon a chair, and gave his vast -body to a convulsion of arid sobs. The man was in hysterics, compounding -smiles and sobs a score to the minute, but at the end 'twas the natural -man won the bout, else he had taken a stroke. I stood by him in perplexity -of opinions whether to laugh or storm, whether to give myself to the -righteous horror a good man ought to feel in the presence of a murtherer, -or shrug my shoulders tolerantly at the imbecile. -</p> -<p> -“There!” said he, recovering his natural manner, “I have made a mortal -enemy of Andrew Greig's nephew. Yes, yes, master, glower at Misery, fat -Misery—and the devil take it!—old Misery, without a penny in -'ts pocket, and its next trip upon wheels a trip to the block to nuzzle at -the dirty end in damp sawdust a nose that has appreciated the bouquet of -the rarest wines. Paul, my boy, has't a pinch of snuff? A brutal bird out -there sings a stave of the <i>Chanson de la Veuve</i> so like the -confounded thing that I heard my own foolish old head drop into the -basket, and there! I swear to you the smell of the sawdust is in my -nostrils now.” - </p> -<p> -I handed him my box; 'twas a mull my Uncle Andy gave me before he died, -made of the horn of a young bullock, with a blazon of the house on the -silver lid. He took it eagerly and drenched himself with the contents. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, la! la!” he cried; “I give thanks. My head was like yeast. I wish it -were Christmas last, and a man called Hamilton was back in Dixmunde -parish. But there! that is enough, I have made my bed and I must lie on't, -with a blight on all militant jesuitry! When last I had this box in my -fingers they were as steady as Mont St. Michel, now look—they are -trembling like aspen, <i>n'est-ce pas?</i> And all that's different is -that I have eaten one or two better dinners and cracked a few pipkins of -better wine, and—and—well-nigh killed a police officer. Did'st -ever hear of one Hamilton, M. Greig? 'Twas a cheery old fellow in Dixmunde -whose name was the same as mine, and had a garden and bee-hives, and I am -on the rack for my sins.” - </p> -<p> -He might be on the rack—and, indeed, I daresay the man was in a -passion of feelings so that he knew not what he was havering about, but -what impressed me most of all about him was that he seemed to have some -momentary gleams of satisfaction in his situation. -</p> -<p> -“I have every ground of complaint against you, sir,” I said. -</p> -<p> -“What!” he interrupted. “Would'st plague an old man with complaints when -M. de Paris is tapping him on the shoulder to come away and smell the -sawdust of his own coffin? Oh, 'tis not in this wise thy uncle had done, -but no matter!” - </p> -<p> -“I have no wish, Father Hamilton, to revile you for what you have brought -me,” I hastened to tell him. “That is far from my thoughts, though now -that you put me in mind of it, there is some ground for my blaming you if -blaming was in my intention. But I shall blame you for this, that you are -a priest of the Church and a Frenchman, and yet did draw a murderous hand -upon a prince of your own country.” - </p> -<p> -This took him somewhat aback. He helped himself to another voluminous -pinch of my snuff to give him time for a rejoinder and then—“Regicide, -M. Greig, is sometimes to be defended when——” - </p> -<p> -“Regicide!” I cried, losing all patience, “give us the plain English of -it, Father Hamilton, and call it murder. To call it by a Latin name makes -it none the more respectable a crime against the courts of heaven where -the curse of Babel has an end. But for an accident, or the cunning of -others, you had a corpse upon your conscience this day, and your name had -been abhorred throughout the whole of Europe.” - </p> -<p> -He put his shoulders up till his dew-laps fell in massive folds. -</p> -<p> -“'Fore God!” said he, “here's a treatise in black letter from Andrew -Greig's nephew. It comes indifferently well, I assure thee, from Andrew's -nephew. Those who live in glass houses, <i>cher ami</i>,—those who -live in glass houses——” - </p> -<p> -He tapped me upon the breast with his fat finger and paused, with a -significant look upon his countenance. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, ye can out with it, Father Hamilton!” I cried, certain I knew his -meaning. -</p> -<p> -“Those who live in glass houses,” said he, “should have some pity for a -poor old devil out in the weather without a shelter of any sort.” - </p> -<p> -“You were about to taunt me with my own unhappy affair,” I said, little -relishing his consideration. -</p> -<p> -“Was I, M. Greig?” he said softly. “Faith! a glass residence seems to -breed an ungenerous disposition! If thou can'st credit me I know nothing -of thine affair beyond what I may have suspected from a Greig travelling -hurriedly and in red shoes. I make you my compliments, Monsieur, of your -morality that must be horror-struck at my foolish play with a pistol, yet -thinks me capable of a retort so vile as that you indicate. My dear lad, I -but spoke of what we have spoken of together before in our happy chariot -in the woods of Somme—thine uncle's fate, and all I expected was, -that remembering the same, thou his nephew would'st have enough tolerance -for an old fool to leave his punishment in the hands of the constitute -authority. <i>Voilà !</i> I wish to heaven they had given me another cell, -after all, that I might have imagined thy pity for one that did thee no -harm, or at least meant to do none, which is the main thing with all our -acts else Purgatory's more crowded than I fancy.” - </p> -<p> -He went wearily over to the fire and spread his trembling hands to the -blaze; I looked after him perplexed in my mind, but not without an -overpowering pity. -</p> -<p> -“I have come, like thyself, doubtless,” he said after a little, “over vile -roads in a common cart, and lay awake last night in a dungeon—a -pretty conclusion to my excursion! And yet I am vastly more happy to-day -than I was this time yesterday morning.” - </p> -<p> -“But then you were free,” I said, “you had all you need wish for—money, -a conveyance, servants, leisure——” - </p> -<p> -“And M' Croque-mort's company,” he added with a poor smile. “True, true! -But the thing was then to do,” and he shuddered. “Now my part is done, -'twas by God's grace a failure, and I could sing for content like one of -the little birds we heard the other day in Somme.” - </p> -<p> -He could not but see my bewilderment in my face. -</p> -<p> -“You wonder at that,” said he, relinquishing the Roman manner as he always -did when most in earnest. “Does Monsieur fancy a poor old priest can take -to the ancient art of assassination with an easy mind? <i>Nom de nom!</i> -I could skip to the block like a ballet-dancer if 'twere either that or -live the past two days over again and fifty years after. I have none of -the right stomach for murder; that's flat! 'tis a business that keeps you -awake too much at night, and disturbs the gastric essence; calls, too, for -a confounded agility that must be lacking in a person of my handsome and -plenteous bulk. I had rather go fishing any day in the week than imbrue. -When Buhot entered the room where I waited for a less worthy man and I -fired honestly for my money and missed, I could have died of sheer -rapture. Instead I threw myself upon his breast and embraced him.” - </p> -<p> -“He said none of that to me.” - </p> -<p> -“Like enough not, but 'tis true none the less, though he may keep so -favourable a fact out of his records. A good soul enough, Buhot! We knew -him, your uncle and I, in the old days when I was thinner and played a -good game of chess at three in the morning. Fancy Ned Hamilton cutting -short the glorious career of old Buhot! I'd sooner pick a pocket.” - </p> -<p> -“Or kill a prince!” - </p> -<p> -“Felicitations on your wit, M. Greig! Heaven help the elderly when the new -wit is toward! <i>N'importe!</i> Perhaps 'twere better to kill some -princes than to pick a pocket. Is it not better, or less wicked, let us -say, to take the life of a man villainously abusing it than the purse of a -poor wretch making the most of his scanty <i>livres?</i>” - </p> -<p> -And then the priest set out upon his defence. It is too long here to -reproduce in his own words, even if I recalled them, and too specious in -its terms for the patience of the honest world of our time. With his hands -behind his back he marched up and down the room for the space of a -half-hour at the least, recounting all that led to his crime. The tale was -like a wild romance, but yet, as we know now, true in every particular. He -was of the Society of Jesus, had lived a stormy youth, and fallen in later -years into a disrepute in his own parish, and there the heads of his -Society discovered him a very likely tool for their purposes. They had -only half convinced him that the death of Charles Edward was for the glory -of God and the good of the Church when they sent him marching with a -pistol and £500 in bills of exchange and letters of credit upon a chase -that covered a great part of three or four countries, and ended at Lisbon, -when a German Jesuit in the secret gave him ten crusadoes to bring him -home with his task unaccomplished. -</p> -<p> -“I have what amounts almost to a genius for losing the opportunities of -which I do not desire to avail myself,” said Father Hamilton with a -whimsical smile. -</p> -<p> -And then he had lain in disgrace with the Jesuits for a number of years -until it became manifest (as he confessed with shame) that his experience -of leisure, wealth, and travel had enough corrupted him to make the -prospect of a second adventure of a similar kind pleasing. At that time -Charles, lost to the sight of Europe, and only discovered at brief and -tantalising intervals by the Jesuit agents, scarce slept two nights in the -same town, but went from country to country <i>incognito</i>, so that -'twas no trivial task Father Hamilton undertook to run him to earth. -</p> -<p> -“The difficulty of it—indeed the small likelihood there was of my -ever seeing him,” he said, “was what mainly induced me to accept the -office, though in truth it was compelled. I was doing very well at -Dunkerque,” he went on, “and very happy if I had never heard more of -prince or priesthood, when Father Fleuriau sent me a hurried intimation -that my victim was due at Versailles on Easter and ordered my instant -departure there.” - </p> -<p> -The name of Fleuriau recalled me to my senses. “Stop, stop, Father -Hamilton!” I cried, “I must hear no more.” - </p> -<p> -“What!” said he, bitterly, “is't too good a young gentleman to listen to -the confession of a happy murderer that has failed at his trade?” - </p> -<p> -“I have no feeling left but pity,” said I, almost like to weep at this, -“but you have been put into this cell along with me for a purpose.” - </p> -<p> -“And what might that be, M. Greig?” he asked, looking round about him, and -seeing for the first time, I swear, the sort of place he was in. “Faith! -it is comfort, at any rate; I scarce noticed that, in my pleasure at -seeing Paul Greig again.” - </p> -<p> -“You must not tell me any more of your Jesuit plot, nor name any of those -involved in the same, for Buhot has been at me to cock an ear to -everything you may say in that direction, and betray you and your friends. -It is for that he has put us together into this cell.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Pardieu!</i> am not I betrayed enough already?” cried the priest, -throwing up his hands. “I'll never deny my guilt.” - </p> -<p> -“Yes,” I said, “but they want the names of your fellow conspirators, and -Buhot says they never expect them directly from you.” - </p> -<p> -“He does, does he?” said the priest, smiling. “Faith, M. Buhot has a good -memory for his friend's characteristics. No, M. Greig, if they put this -comfortable carcase to the rack itself. And was that all thy concern? -Well, as I was saying—let us speak low lest some one be listening—this -Father Fleuriau-” - </p> -<p> -Again I stopped him. -</p> -<p> -“You put me into a hard position, Father Hamilton,” I said. “My freedom—my -life, perhaps—depends on whether I can tell them your secret or not, -and here you throw it in my face.” - </p> -<p> -“And why not?” he asked, simply. “I merely wish to show myself largely the -creature of circumstances, and so secure a decent Scot's most favourable -opinion of me before the end.” - </p> -<p> -“But I might be tempted to betray you.” - </p> -<p> -The old eagle looked again out at his eyes. He gently slapped my cheek -with a curious touch of fondness almost womanly, and gave a low, contented -laugh. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Farceur!</i>” he said. “As if I did not know my Don Dolorous, my merry -Andrew's nephew!” His confidence hugely moved me, and, lest he should -think I feared to trust myself with his secrets, I listened to the -remainder of his story, which I shall not here set down, as it bears but -slightly on my own narrative, and may even yet be revealed only at cost of -great distress among good families, not only on the Continent but in -London itself. -</p> -<p> -When he had done, he thanked me for listening so attentively to a matter -that was so much on his mind that it gave him relief to share it with some -one. “And not only for that, M. Greig,” said he, “are my thanks due, for -you saved the life that might have been the prince's instead of my old -gossip, Buhot's. To take the bullet out of my pistol was the device your -uncle himself would have followed in the like circumstances.” - </p> -<p> -“But I did not do that!” I protested. -</p> -<p> -He looked incredulous. -</p> -<p> -“Buhot said as much,” said he; “he let it out unwittingly that I had had -my claws clipped by my own household.” - </p> -<p> -“Then assuredly not by me, Father Hamilton.” - </p> -<p> -“So!” said he, half incredulous, and a look of speculation came upon his -countenance. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXIV -</h2> -<h3> -PHILOSOPHY IN A FELON'S CELL -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t seemed for a while as if we were fated to lie forgotten in Bicêtre till -the crack of doom; not that we were many days there when all was done, but -that in our natural hourly expectation at first of being called forth for -trial the hours passed so sluggishly that Time seemed finally to sleep, -and a week, to our fancy—to mine at all events—seemed a month -at the most modest computation. -</p> -<p> -I should have lost my reason but for the company of the priest, who, for -considerations best known to others and to me monstrously inadequate, was -permitted all the time to share my cell. In his singular society there was -a recreation that kept me from too feverishly brooding on my wrongs, and -his character every day presented fresh features of interest and -admiration. He had become quite cheerful again, and as content in the -confine of his cell as he had been when the glass coach was jolting over -the early stages of what had been intended for a gay procession round the -courts of Europe. Once more he affected the Roman manner that was due to -his devotion to Shakespeare and L'Estrange's Seneca, and “Clarissa -Harlowe,” a knowledge of which, next to the Scriptures, he counted the -first essentials for a polite education. I protest he grew fatter every -day, and for ease his corpulence was at last saved the restraint of -buttons, which was an indolent indulgence so much to his liking that of -itself it would have reconciled him to spend the remainder of his time in -prison. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Tiens!</i> Paul,” he would say, “here's an old fool has blundered -through the greater part of his life without guessing till now how easy a -thing content is to come by. Why, 'tis no more than a loose waistcoat and -a chemise unbuttoned at the neck. I dared not be happy thus in Dixmunde, -where the folks were plaguily particular that their priest should be -point-devise, as if mortal man had time to tend his soul and keep a -constant eye on the lace of his fall.” - </p> -<p> -And he would stretch himself—a very mountain of sloth—in his -chair. -</p> -<p> -With me 'twas different. Even in a gaol I felt sure a day begun untidily -was a day ill-done by. If I had no engagements with the fastidious -fashionable world I had engagements with myself; moreover, I shared my -father's sentiment, that a good day's darg of work with any thinking in it -was never done in a pair of slippers down at the heel. Thus I was as -peijink (as we say) in Bicêtre as I would have been at large in the -genteel world. -</p> -<p> -“Not,” he would admit, “but that I love to see thee in a decent habit, and -so constant plucking at thy hose, for I have been young myself, and had -some right foppish follies, too. But now, my good man Dandiprat, my <i>petit-maître</i>, -I am old—oh, so old!—and know so much of wisdom, and have seen -such a confusion of matters, that I count comfort the greatest of -blessings. The devil fly away with buttons and laces! say I, that have -been parish priest of Dixmunde—and happily have not killed a man nor -harmed a flea, though like enough to get killed myself.” - </p> -<p> -The weather was genial, yet he sat constantly hugging the fire, and I at -the window, which happily gave a prospect of the yard between our building -and that of Galbanon. I would be looking out there, and perhaps pining for -freedom, while he went prating on upon the scurviest philosophy surely -ever man gave air to. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/226.jpg" alt="226" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -“Behold, my scrivener, how little man wants for happiness! My constant -fear in Dixmunde was that I would become so useless for all but eating and -sleeping, when I was old, that no one would guarantee me either; poverty -took that place at my table the skull took among the Romans—the -thought on't kept me in a perpetual apprehension. <i>Nom de chien!</i> and -this was what I feared—this, a hard lodging, coarse viands, and sour -wine! What was the fellow's name?—Demetrius, upon the taking of -Megara, asked Monsieur Un-tel the Philosopher what he had lost. 'Nothing -at all,' said he, 'for I have all that I could call my own about me,' and -yet 'twas no more than the skin he stood in. A cell in Bicêtre would have -been paradise to such a gallant fellow. Oh, Paul, I fear thou may'st be -ungrateful—I would be looking out there, and perhaps pining for -freedom,” he went prating on, “to this good Buhot, who has given us such a -fine lodging, and saved us the care of providing for ourselves.” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis all very well, father,” I said, leaning on the sill of the window, -and looking at a gang of prisoners being removed from one part of Galbanon -to another—“'tis all very well, but I mind a priest that thought -jaunting round the country in a chariot the pinnacle of bliss. And that -was no further gone than a fortnight ago.” - </p> -<p> -“Bah!” said he, and stretched his fat fingers to the fire; “he that cannot -live happily anywhere will live happily nowhere at all. What avails -travel, if Care waits like a hostler to unyoke the horses at every stage? -I tell thee, my boy, I never know what a fine fellow is Father Hamilton -till I have him by himself at a fireside; 'tis by firesides all the wisest -notions come to one.” - </p> -<p> -“I wish there came a better dinner than to-day's,” said I, for we had -agreed an hour ago that smoked soup was not very palatable. -</p> -<p> -“La! la! la! there goes Sir Gourmet!” cried his reverence. “Have I -infected this poor Scot that ate naught but oats ere he saw France, with -mine own fever for fine feeding from which, praise <i>le bon Dieu!</i> I -have recovered? 'Tis a brutal entertainment, and unworthy of man, to place -his felicity in the service of his senses. I maintain that even smoked -soup is pleasant enough on the palate of a man with an easy conscience, -and a mind purged of vulgar cares.” - </p> -<p> -“And you can be happy here, Father Hamilton?” - </p> -<p> -I asked, astonished at such sentiments from a man before so ill to please. -</p> -<p> -He heaved like a mountain in travail, and brought forth a peal of laughter -out of all keeping with our melancholy situation. “Happy!” said he, “I -have never been happy for twenty years till Buhot clapped claw upon my -wrist. Thou may'st have seen a sort of mask of happiness, a false face of -jollity in Dunkerque parlours, and heard a well-simulated laughter now and -then as we drank by wayside inns, but may I be called coxcomb if the -miserable wretch who playacted then was half so light of heart as this -that sits here at ease, and has only one regret—that he should have -dragged Andrew Greig's nephew into trouble with him. What man can be -perfectly happy that runs the risk of disappointment—which is the -case of every man that fears or hopes for anything? Here am I, too old for -the flame of love or the ardour of ambition; all that knew me and -understood me best and liked me most are dead long since. I have a state -palace prepared for me free; a domestic in livery to serve my meals; -parishioners do not vex me with their trifling little hackneyed sins, and -my conclusion seems like to come some morning after an omelet and a glass -of wine.” - </p> -<p> -I could not withhold a shudder. -</p> -<p> -“But to die that way, Father!” I said. -</p> -<p> -“<i>C'est égal!</i>” said he, and crossed himself. “We must all die -somehow, and I had ever a dread of a stone. Come, come, M. Croque-mort, -enough of thy confounded dolours! I'll be hanged if thou did'st not steal -these shoes, and art after all but an impersonator of a Greig. The lusty -spirit thou call'st thine uncle would have used his teeth ere now to gnaw -his way through the walls of Bicêtre, and here thou must stop to converse -cursedly on death to the fatted ox that smells the blood of the abattoir—oh -lad, give's thy snuff-box, sawdust again!” - </p> -<p> -Thus by the hour went on the poor wretch, resigned most obviously to -whatever was in store for him, not so much from a native courage, I fear, -as from a plethora of flesh that smothered every instinct of -self-preservation. As for me I kept up hope for three days that Buhot -would surely come to test my constancy again, and when that seemed -unlikely, when day after day brought the same routine, the same cell with -Hamilton, the same brief exercise in the yard, the same vulgar struggle at -the <i>gamelle</i> in the <i>salle d'épreuve</i>—I could have -welcomed Galbanon itself as a change, even if it meant all the horror that -had been associated with it by Buhot and my friend the sous-officer. -</p> -<p> -Galbanon! I hope it has long been levelled with the dust, and even then I -know the ghosts of those there tortured in their lives will habitate the -same in whirling eddies, for a constant cry for generations has gone up to -heaven from that foul spot. It must have been a devilish ingenuity, an -invention of all the impish courts below, that placed me at a window where -Galbanon faced me every hour of the day or night, its horror all revealed. -I have seen in the pool of Earn in autumn weather, when the river was in -spate, dead leaves and broken branches borne down dizzily upon the water -to toss madly in the linn at the foot of the fall; no less helpless, no -less seared by sin and sorrow, or broken by the storms of circumstance, -were the wretches that came in droves to Galbanon. The stream of crime or -tyranny bore them down (some from very high places), cast them into this -boiling pool, and there they eddied in a circle of degraded tasks from -which it seemed the fate of many of them never to escape, though their -luckier fellows went in twos or threes every other day in a cart to their -doom appointed. -</p> -<p> -Be sure it was not pleasant each day for me to hear the hiss of the lash -and the moans of the bastinadoed wretch, to see the blood spurt, and -witness the anguish of the men who dragged enormous bilboes on their -galled ankles. -</p> -<p> -At last I felt I could stand it no longer, and one day intimated to Father -Hamilton that I was determined on an escape. -</p> -<p> -“Good lad!” he cried, his eye brightening. “The most sensible thing thou -hast said in twenty-four hours. 'Twill be a recreation for myself to -help,” and he buttoned his waistcoat. -</p> -<p> -“We can surely devise some means of breaking out if——” - </p> -<p> -“We!” he repeated, shaking his head. “No, no, Paul, thou hast too risky a -task before thee to burden thyself with behemoth. Shalt escape by thyself -and a blessing with thee, but as for Father Hamilton he knows when he is -well-off, and he shall not stir a step out of Buhot's charming and -commodious inn until the bill is presented.” - </p> -<p> -In vain I protested that I should not dream of leaving him there while I -took flight; he would listen to none of my reasoning, and for that day at -least I abandoned the project. -</p> -<p> -Next day Buhot helped me to a different conclusion, for I was summoned -before him. -</p> -<p> -“Well, Monsieur,” he said, “is it that we have here a more discerning -young gentleman than I had the honour to meet last time?” - </p> -<p> -“Just the very same, M. Buhot,” said I bluntly. He chewed the stump of his -pen and shrugged his shoulders. -</p> -<p> -“Come, come, M. Greig,” he went on, “this is a <i>bêtise</i> of the most -ridiculous. We have given you every opportunity of convincing yourself -whether this Hamilton is a good man or a bad one, whether he is the tool -of others or himself a genius of mischief.” - </p> -<p> -“The tool of others, certainly, that much I am prepared to tell you, but -that you know already. And certainly no genius of mischief himself; man! -he has not got the energy to kick a dog.” - </p> -<p> -“And—and—” said Buhot softly, fancying he had me in the key of -revelation. -</p> -<p> -“And that's all, M. Buhot,” said I, with a carriage he could not mistake. -</p> -<p> -He shrugged his shoulders again, wrote something in a book on the desk -before him with great deliberation and then asked me how I liked my -quarters in Bicêtre. -</p> -<p> -“Tolerably well,” I said. “I've been in better, but I might be in waur.” - </p> -<p> -He laughed a little at the Scotticism that seemed to recall something—perhaps -a pleasantry of my uncle's—to him, and then said he, “I'm sorry they -cannot be yours very much longer, M. Greig. We calculated that a week or -two of this priest's company would have been enough to inspire a distaste -and secure his confession, but apparently we were mistaken. You shall be -taken to other quarters on Saturday.” - </p> -<p> -“I hope, M. Buhot,” said I, “they are to be no worse than those I occupy -now.” - </p> -<p> -His face reddened a little at this—I felt always there was some vein -of special kindness to me in this man's nature—and he said -hesitatingly, “Well, the truth is, 'tis Galbanon.” - </p> -<p> -“Before a trial?” I asked, incredulous. -</p> -<p> -“The trial will come in good time,” he said, rising to conclude the -parley, and he turned his back on me as I was conducted out of the room -and back to the cell, where Father Hamilton waited with unwonted agitation -for my tidings. -</p> -<p> -“Well, lad,” he cried, whenever we were alone, “what stirs? I warrant they -have not a jot of evidence against thee,” but in a second he saw from my -face the news was not so happy, and his own face fell. -</p> -<p> -“We are to be separated on Saturday,” I told him. -</p> -<p> -Tears came to his eyes at that—a most feeling old rogue! -</p> -<p> -“And where is't for thee, Paul?” he asked. -</p> -<p> -“Where is't for yourself ought to be of more importance to you, Father -Hamilton.” - </p> -<p> -“No, no,” he cried, “it matters little about me, but surely for you it -cannot be Galbanon?” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed, and it is no less.” - </p> -<p> -“Then, Paul,” he said firmly, “we must break out, and that without loss of -time.” - </p> -<p> -“Is it in the plural this time?” I asked him. -</p> -<p> -He affected an indifference, but at the last consented to share the whole -of the enterprise. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXV -</h2> -<h3> -WE ATTEMPT AN ESCAPE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>ather Hamilton was not aware of the extent of it, but he knew I was in a -correspondence with the sous-officer. More than once he had seen us in the -<i>salle dépreuve</i> in a manifest understanding of each other, though he -had no suspicion that the gentleman was a Mercury for Miss Walkinshaw, -whose name seldom, if ever, entered into our conversation in the cell. -From her I had got but one other letter—a brief acknowledgment of -some of my fullest budgets, but 'twas enough to keep me at my diurnal on -every occasion almost on which the priest slept. I sent her (with the -strictest injunction to secrecy upon so important a matter) a great deal -of the tale the priest had told me—not so much for her entertainment -as for the purpose of moving in the poor man's interests. Especially was I -anxious that she should use her influence to have some one communicate to -Father Fleuriau, who was at the time in Bruges, how hazardous was the -position of his unhappy cat's-paw, whose state I pictured in the most -moving colours I could command. There was, it must be allowed, a risk in -entrusting a document so damnatory to any one in Bicêtre, but that the -packet was duly forwarded to its destination I had every satisfaction of -from the sous-officer, who brought me an acknowledgment to that effect -from Bernard the Swiss. -</p> -<p> -The priest knew, then, as I say, that I was on certain terms with this -sous-officer, and so it was with no hesitation I informed him that, -through the favour of the latter, I had a very fair conception of the -character and plan of this building of Bicêtre in which we were interned. -What I had learned of most importance to us was that the block of which -our cell was a part had a face to the main road of Paris, from which -thoroughfare it was separated by a spacious court and a long range of iron -palisades. If ever we were to make our way out of the place it must be in -this direction, for on two sides of our building we were overlooked by -buildings vastly more throng than our own, and bordered by yards in which -were constant sentinels. Our block jutted out at an angle from one very -much longer, but lower by two storeys, and the disposition of both made it -clear that to enter into this larger edifice, and towards the gable end of -it that overlooked the palisades of the Paris road, was our most feasible -method of essay. -</p> -<p> -I drew a plan of the prison and grounds on paper, estimating as best I -might all the possible checks we were like to meet with, and leaving a -balance of chances in our favour that we could effect our purpose in a -night. -</p> -<p> -The priest leaned his chin upon his arms as he lolled over the table on -which I eagerly explained my diagram, and sighed at one or two of the -feats of agility it assumed. There was, for example, a roof to walk upon—the -roof of the building we occupied—though how we were to get there in -the first place was still to be decided. Also there was a descent from -that roof on to the lower building at right angles, though where the -ladder or rope for this was to come from I must meanwhile airily leave to -fortune. Finally, there was—assuming we got into the larger -building, and in some unforeseeable way along its roof and clear to the -gable end—a part of the yard to cross, and the palisade to escalade. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, lad! thou takest me for a bird,” cried his reverence, aghast at all -this. “Is thy poor fellow prisoner a sparrow? A little after this I might -do't with my own wings—the saints guide me!—but figure you -that at present I am not Philetas, the dwarf, who had to wear leaden shoes -lest the wind should blow him away. 'Twould take a wind indeed to stir -this amplitude of good humours, this sepulchre of twenty thousand good -dinners and incomputible tuns of liquid merriment. Pray, Paul, make an -account of my physical infirmities, and mitigate thy transport of -vaultings and soarings and leapings and divings, unless, indeed, thou -meditatest sewing me up in a sheet, and dragging me through the realms of -space.” - </p> -<p> -“We shall manage! we shall manage!” I insisted, now quite uplifted in a -fanciful occupation that was all to my tastes, even if nothing came of it, -and I plunged more boldly into my plans. They were favoured by several -circumstances—the first, namely, that we were not in the uniform of -the prison, and, once outside the prison, could mingle with the world -without attracting attention. Furthermore, by postponing the attempt till -the morrow night I could communicate with the Swiss, and secure his -cooperation outside in the matter of a horse or a vehicle, if the same -were called for. I did not, however, say so much as that to his reverence, -whom I did not wish as yet to know of my correspondence with Bernard. -Finally, we had an auspicious fact at the outset of our attempt, inasmuch -as the cell we were in was in the corridor next to that of which the -sous-officer had some surveillance, and I knew his mind well enough now to -feel sure he would help in anything that did not directly involve his own -position and duties. In other words, he was to procure a copy of the key -of our cell, and find a means of leaving it unlocked when the occasion -arose. -</p> -<p> -“A copy of the key, Paul!” said Father Hamilton; “sure there are no bounds -to thy cheerful mad expectancy! But go on! go on! art sure he could not be -prevailed on—this fairy godfather—to give us an escort of -cavalry and trumpeters?” - </p> -<p> -“This is not much of a backing-up, Father Hamilton,” I said, annoyed at -his skeptic comments upon an affair that involved so much and agitated -myself so profoundly. -</p> -<p> -“Pardon! Paul,” he said hastily, confused and vexed himself at the -reproof. “Art quite right, I'm no more than a croaker, and for penance I -shall compel myself to do the wildest feat thou proposest.” - </p> -<p> -We determined to put off the attempt at escape till I had communicated -with the sous-officer (in truth, though Father Hamilton did not know it, -till I had communicated with Bernard the Swiss), and it was the following -afternoon I had not only an assurance of the unlocked door, but in my hand -a more trustworthy plan of the prison than my own, and the promise that -the Swiss would be waiting with a carriage outside the palisades when we -broke through, any time between midnight and five in the morning. -</p> -<p> -Next day, then, we were in a considerable agitation; to that extent indeed -that I clean forgot that we had no aid to our descent of twenty or thirty -feet (as the sous-sergeant's diagram made it) from the roof of our block -on to that of the one adjoining. We had had our minds so much on bolted -doors and armed sentinels that this detail had quite escaped us until -almost on the eve of setting out at midnight, the priest began again to -sigh about his bulk and swear no rope short of a ship's cable would serve -to bear him. -</p> -<p> -“Rope!” I cried, in a tremendous chagrin at my stupidity. “Lord! if I have -not quite forgot it. We have none.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah!” he said, “perhaps it is not necessary. Perhaps my heart is so light -at parting with my <i>croque-mort</i> that I can drop upon the tiles like -a pigeon.” - </p> -<p> -“Parting,” I repeated, eyeing him suspiciously, for I thought perhaps he -had changed his mind again. “Who thinks of parting?” - </p> -<p> -“Not I indeed,” says he, “unless the rope do when thou hast got it.” - </p> -<p> -There was no rope, however, and I cursed my own folly that I had not asked -one from the sous-officer whose complaisance might have gone the length of -a fathom or two, though it did not, as the priest suggested, go so far as -an armed convoy and a brace of trumpeters. It was too late now to repair -the overlook, and to the making of rope the two of us had there and then -to apply ourselves, finding the sheets and blankets-of our beds scanty -enough for our purpose, and by no means of an assuring elegance or -strength when finished. But we had thirty feet of some sort of cord at the -last, and whether it was elegant or not it had to do for our purpose. -</p> -<p> -Luckily the night was dark as pitch and a high wind roared in the -chimneys, and in the numerous corners of the prison. There was a sting in -the air that drew many of the sentinels round the braziers flaming in the -larger yard between the main entrance and the buildings, and that further -helped our prospects; so that it was with some hope, in spite of a heart -that beat like a flail in my breast, I unlocked the door and crept out -into the dimly-lighted corridor with the priest close behind me. -</p> -<p> -Midway down this gallery there was a stair of which our plan apprised us, -leading to another gallery—the highest of the block—from which -a few steps led to a cock-loft where the sous-officer told us there was -one chance in a score of finding a blind window leading to the roof. -</p> -<p> -No one, luckily, appeared as we hurried down the long gallery. I darted -like a fawn up the stair to the next flat, Father Hamilton grievously -puffing behind me, and we had just got into the shadow of the steps -leading to the cock-loft when a warder's step and the clank of his chained -keys came sounding down the corridor. He passed within three feet of us -and I felt the blood of all my body chill with fear! -</p> -<p> -“I told thee, lad,” whispered the priest, mopping the sweat from his face, -“I told thee 'twas an error to burden thyself with such a useless carcase. -Another moment or two—a gasp for the wind that seems so cursed ill -to come by at my years, and I had brought thee into trouble.” - </p> -<p> -I paid no heed to him, but crept up the steps and into the cock-loft that -smelt villainously of bats. -</p> -<p> -The window was unfastened! I stuck out my head upon the tiles and sniffed -the fine fresh air of freedom as it had been a rare perfume. -</p> -<p> -Luckily the window was scarcely any height, and it proved easy to aid his -reverence into the open air. Luckily, further, it was too dark for him to -realise the jeopardies of his situation for whether his precarious -gropings along the tiles were ten feet or thirty from the yard below was -indiscoverable in the darkness. He slid his weighty body along with an -honest effort that was wholly due to his regard for my interests, because -'twas done with groans and whispered protestations that 'twas the maddest -thing for a man to leave a place where he was happy and risk his neck in -an effort to discover misery. A rime of frost was on the tiles, and they -were bitter cold to the touch. One fell, too, below me as I slid along, -and rattled loudly over its fellows and plunged into the yard. -</p> -<p> -Naturally we stopped dead and listened breathless, a foolish action for -one reason because in any case we had been moving silently at a great -height above the place where the tile should fall so that there was no -risk of our being heard or seen, but our listening discovered so great an -interval between the loosening of the tile and its dull shattering on the -stones below that the height on which we were perched in the darkness was -made more plain—more dreadful to the instincts than if we could -actually measure it with the eye. I confess I felt a touch of nausea, but -nothing compared with the priest, whose teeth began to chitter in an ague -of horror. -</p> -<p> -“Good Lord, Paul!” he whispered to me, clutching my leg as I moved in -front of him, “it is the bottomless pit.” - </p> -<p> -“Not unless we drop,” said I. And to cheer him up I made some foolish -joke. -</p> -<p> -If the falling tile attracted any attention in the yard it was not -apparent to us, and five minutes later we had to brace ourselves to a -matter that sent the tile out of our minds. -</p> -<p> -For we were come to the end of the high building, and twenty feet below -us, at right angles, we could plainly see the glow of several skylights in -the long prison to which it was attached. It was now the moment for our -descent on the extemporised rope. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXVI -</h2> -<h3> -A RIMEY NIGHT ON ROOF-TOPS, AND A NEW USE FOR AN OLD KIRK BELL -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> fastened the rope about a chimney-head with some misgivings that by the -width and breadth of the same I was reducing our chance of ever getting -down to the lower building, as the knotted sheets from the outset had been -dubious measure for the thirty feet of which my sous-officer had given the -estimate. But I said never a word to the priest of my fears on that score, -and determined for once to let what was left of honesty go before -well-fattened age and test the matter first myself. If the cord was too -brief for its purpose, or (what was just as likely) on the frail side, I -could pull myself back in the one case as the priest was certainly unfit -to do, and in the other my weight would put less strain upon it than that -of Father Hamilton. -</p> -<p> -I can hear him yet in my imagination after forty years, as he clung to the -ridge of the roof like a seal on a rock, chittering in the cold night -wind, enviously eyeing some fires that blazed in another yard and groaning -melancholiously. -</p> -<p> -“A garden,” said he, “and six beehives—no, 'faith! 'twas seven last -summer, and a roomful of books. Oh, Paul, Paul! Now I know how God cast -out Satan. He took him from his warm fireside, and his books before they -were all read, and his pantoufles, and set him straddling upon a frozen -house-top to ponder through eternal night upon the happy past. Alas, poor -being! How could he know what joys were in the simplicity of a room of -books half-read and a pair of warm old slippers?” - </p> -<p> -He was fair rambling in his fears, my poor priest, and I declare scarcely -knew the half of what he uttered, indeed he spoke out so loudly that I had -to check him lest he should attract attention from below. -</p> -<p> -“Father Hamilton,” said I, when my cord was fastened, “with your -permission I'll try it first. I want to make it sure that my seamanship on -the sloop <i>Sarah</i>, of Ayr, has not deserted me to the extent that I -cannot come down a rope without a ratline or tie a bowling knot.” - </p> -<p> -“Certainly, Paul, certainly,” said he, quite eagerly, so that I was -tempted for a second to think he gladly postponed his own descent from -sheer terror. -</p> -<p> -I threw over the free end of the cord and crouched upon the beak of the -gable to lower myself. -</p> -<p> -“Well, Paul,” said his reverence in a broken voice. “Let us say 'good-bye' -in case aught should happen ere we are on the same level again.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh!” said I, impatient, “that's the true <i>croque-mort</i> spirit -indeed! Why, Father, it isn't—it isn't—” I was going to say it -was not a gallows I was venturing on, but the word stuck in my throat, for -a certain thought that sprung to me of how nearly in my own case it had -been to the very gallows, and his reverence doubtless saw some delicacy, -for he came promptly to my help. -</p> -<p> -“Not a priest's promise—made to be broken, you would say, good -Paul,” said he. “I promised the merriest of jaunts over Europe in a coach, -and here my scrivener is hanging in the reins! Pardon, dear Scotland, <i>milles -pardons</i> and good-bye and good luck.” And at that he made to embrace -me. -</p> -<p> -“Here's a French ceremony just about nothing at all,” I thought, and began -my descent. The priest lay on his stomach upon the ridge. As I sank, with -my eyes turned upwards, I could see his hair blown by the wind against a -little patch of stars, that was the only break in the Ethiopia of the sky. -He seemed to follow my progress breathlessly, and when I gained the other -roof and shook the cord to tell him so he responded by a faint clapping of -his hands. -</p> -<p> -“Art all right, lad?” he whispered down to me, and I bade him follow. -</p> -<p> -“Good-night, Paul, good-bye, and God bless you!” he whispered. “Get out of -this as quick as you can; 'tis more than behemoth could do in a month of -dark nights, and so I cut my share of the adventure. One will do't when -two (and one of them a hogshead) will die in trying to do't.” - </p> -<p> -Here was a pretty pickle! The man's ridiculous regard for my safety -outweighed his natural inclinations, though his prospects in the prison of -Bicêtre were blacker than my own, having nothing less dreadful than an -execution at the end of them. He had been merely humouring me so far—and -such a brave humouring in one whose flesh was in a quaking of alarms all -the time he slid along the roof! -</p> -<p> -“Are you not coming?” I whispered. -</p> -<p> -“On the contrary, I'm going, dear Paul,” said he with a pretence at -levity. “Going back to my comfortable cell and my uniformed servant and M. -Buhot, the charmingest of hostellers, and I declare my feet are like ice.” - </p> -<p> -“Then,” said I firmly, “I go back too. I'll be eternally cursed if I give -up my situation as scrivener at this point. I must e'en climb up again.” - And with that I prepared to start the ascent. -</p> -<p> -“Stop! stop!” said he without a second's pause, “stop where you are and -I'll go down. Though 'tis the most stupendous folly,” he added with a -sigh, and in a moment later I saw his vast bulk laboriously heaving over -the side of the roof. Fortunately the knots in the cord where the -fragments of sheet and blanket were joined made his task not so difficult -as it had otherwise been, and almost as speedily as I had done it myself -he reached the roof of the lower building, though in such a state he -quivered like a jelly, and was dumb with fear or with exertion when the -thing was done. -</p> -<p> -“Ah!” he said at last, when he had recovered himself. “Art a fool to be so -particular about an old carcase accursed of easy humours and accused of -regicide. Take another thought on't, Paul. What have you to do with this -wretch of a priest that brought about the whole trouble in your ignorance? -And think of Galbanon!” - </p> -<p> -“Think of the devil! Father Hamilton,” I snapped at him, “every minute we -waste havering away here adds to the chances against any of us getting -free, and I am sure that is not your desire. The long and the short of it -is that I'll not stir a step out of Bicêtre—no, not if the doors -themselves were open—unless you consent to come with me.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Ventre Dieu!</i>” said he, “'tis just such a mulish folly as I might -have looked for from the nephew of Andrew Greig. But lead on, good -imbecile, lead on, and blame not poor Father Hamilton if the thing ends in -a fiasco!” - </p> -<p> -We now crawled along a roof no whit more easily traversed than that we had -already commanded. Again and again I had to stop to permit my companion to -come up on me, for the pitch of the tiles was steep, and he in a peril -from his own lubricity, and it was necessary even to put a hand under his -arm at times when he suffered a vertigo through seeing the lights in the -yard deep down as points of flame. -</p> -<p> -“Egad! boy,” he said, and his perspiring hand clutching mine at one of our -pauses, “I thrill at the very entrails. I'd liefer have my nose in the -sawdust any day than thrash through thin air on to a paving-stone.” - </p> -<p> -“A minute or two more and we are there,” I answered him. -</p> -<p> -“Where?” said he, starting; “in purgatory?” - </p> -<p> -“Look up, man!” I told him. “There's a window beaming ten yards off.” And -again I pushed on. -</p> -<p> -In very truth there was no window, though I prayed as fervently for one as -it had been a glimpse of paradise, but I was bound to cozen the old man -into effort for his own life and for mine. What I had from the higher -building taken for the glow of skylights had been really the light of -windows on the top flat of the other prison block, and its roof was wholly -unbroken. At least I had made up my mind to that with a despair benumbing -when I touched wood. My fingers went over it in the dark with frantic -eagerness. It was a trap such as we had come out of at the other block, -but it was shut. Before the priest could come up to me and suffer the -fresh horror of disappointment I put my weight upon it, and had the good -fortune to throw it in. The flap fell with a shriek of hinges and showed -gaping darkness. We stretched upon the tiles as close as limpets and as -silent. Nothing stirred within. -</p> -<p> -“A garden,” said he in a little, “as sweet as ever bean grew in, with the -rarest plum-tree; and now I am so cold.” - </p> -<p> -“I could be doing with some of your complaint,” said I; “as for me, I'm on -fire. Please heaven, you'll be back in the garden again.” - </p> -<p> -I lowered myself within, followed by the priest, and found we were upon -the rafters. A good bit off there was a beam of light that led us, -groping, and in an imminent danger of going through the plaster, to an -air-hole over a little gallery whose floor was within stretch as I lowered -myself again. -</p> -<p> -Father Hamilton squeezed after me; we both looked over the edge of the -gallery, and found it was a chapel we were in! -</p> -<p> -“<i>Sacré nom!</i>” said the priest and crossed himself, with a -genuflexion to the side of the altar. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, Lord! Paul,” he said, whispering, “if 'twere the Middle Ages, and -this were indeed a sanctuary, how happy was a poor undeserving son of -Mother Church! Even Dagobert's hounds drew back from the stag in St. -Denys.” - </p> -<p> -It was a mean interior, as befitted the worship of the <i>misérables</i> -who at times would meet there. A solemn quiet held the place, that seemed -wholly deserted; the dim light that had shown through the air-hole and -guided us came from some candles dripping before a shrine. -</p> -<p> -“Heaven help us!” said the priest. “I know just such another.” - </p> -<p> -There was nobody in the church so far as we could observe from the little -gallery in which we found ourselves, but when we had gone down a flight of -steps into the body of the same, and made to cross towards the door, we -were suddenly confronted by a priest in a white cope. My heart jumped to -my mouth; I felt a prinkling in the roots of my hair, and stopped dumb, -with all my faculties basely deserted from me. Luckily Father Hamilton -kept his presence of mind. As he told me later, he remembered of a sudden -the Latin proverb that in battles the eye is first overcome, and he fixed -the man in the stole with a glance that was bold and disconcerting. As it -happened, however, the other priest was almost as blind as a bat, and saw -but two civil worshippers in his chapel. He did not even notice that it -was a <i>soutane</i>; he passed peeringly, with a bow to our inclinations, -and it was almost incredulous of our good fortune I darted out of the -chapel into the darkness of a courtyard of equal extent with that I had -crossed on the night of my first arrival at Bicêtre. At its distant end -there were the same flaming braziers with figures around them, and the -same glitter of arms. -</p> -<p> -Now this Bicêtre is set upon a hill and commands a prospect of the city of -Paris, of the Seine and its environs. For that reason we could see to our -right the innumerable lights of a great plain twinkling in the darkness, -and it seemed as if we had only to proceed in that direction to secure -freedom by the mere effort of walking. As we stood in the shadow of the -chapel, Father Hamilton eyed the distant prospect of the lighted town with -a singular rapture. -</p> -<p> -“Paris!” said he. “Oh, Dieu! and I thought never to clap an eye on't -again. Paris, my Paul! Behold the lights of it—<i>la ville lumière</i> -that is so fine I could spend eternity in it. Hearts are there, lad, kind -and jocund-” - </p> -<p> -“And meditating a descent on unhappy Britain,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Good neighbourly hearts, or I'm a gourd else,” he went on, unheeding my -interruption. “The stars in heaven are not so good, are no more notably -the expression of a glowing and fraternal spirit. There is laughter in the -streets of her.” - </p> -<p> -“Not at this hour, Father Hamilton,” said I, and the both of us always -whispering. “I've never seen the place by day nor put a foot in it, but it -will be droll indeed if there is laughter in its streets at two o'clock in -the morning.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah, Paul, shall we ever get there?” said he longingly. “We can but try, -anyway. I certainly did not come all this way, Father Hamilton, just to -look on the lowe of Paris.” - </p> -<p> -What had kept us shrinking in the shadow of the chapel wall had been the -sound of footsteps between us and the palisades that were to be -distinguished a great deal higher than I had expected, on our right. On -the other side of the rails was freedom, as well as Paris that so greatly -interested my companion, but the getting clear of them seemed like to be a -more difficult task than any we had yet overcome, and all the more -hazardous because the footsteps obviously suggested a sentinel. Whether it -was the rawness of the night that tempted him to a relaxation, or whether -he was not strictly on duty, I know not, but, while we stood in the most -wretched of quandaries, the man who was in our path very soon ceased his -perambulation along the palisades, and went over to one of the distant -fires, passing within a few yards of us as we crouched in the darkness. -When he had gone sufficiently out of the way we ran for it. So plain were -the lights of the valley, so flimsy a thing had seemed to part us from the -high-road there, that never a doubt intruded on my mind that now we were -as good as free, and when I came to the rails I beat my head with my hands -when the nature of our folly dawned upon me. -</p> -<p> -“We may just go back,” I said to the priest in a stricken voice. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” said he, wiping his brow and gloating on the spectacle -of the lighted town. -</p> -<p> -“Look,” I said, indicating the railings that were nearly three times my -own height, “there are no convenient trap-doors here.” - </p> -<p> -“But the cord—” said he simply. -</p> -<p> -“Exactly,” I said; “the cord's where we left it snugly tied with a bowling -knot to the chimney of our block, and I'm an ass.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, poor Paul!” said the priest in a prostration at this divulgence of -our error. “I'm the millstone on your neck, for had I not parleyed at the -other end of the cord when you had descended, the necessity for it would -never have escaped your mind. I gave you fair warning, lad, 'twas a -quixotic imbecility to burden yourself with me. And are we really at a -stand? God! look at Paris. Had I not seen these lights I had not cared for -myself a straw, but, oh lord! lad, they are so pleasant and so close! Why -will the world sleep when two unhappy wretches die for want of a little -bit of hemp?” - </p> -<p> -“You are not to blame,” said I, “one rope was little use to us in any -case. But anyhow I do not desire to die of a little bit of hemp if I can -arrange it better.” And I began hurriedly to scour up and down the -palisade like a trapped mouse. It extended for about a hundred yards, -ending at one side against the walls of a gate-house or lodge; on the -other side it concluded at the wall of the chapel. It had no break in all -its expanse, and so there was nothing left for us to do but to go back the -way we had come, obliterate the signs of our attempt and find our cells -again. We went, be sure, with heavy hearts, again ventured into the -chapel, climbed the stairs, went through the ceiling, and stopped a little -among the rafters to rest his reverence who was finding these manoeuvres -too much for his weighty body. While he sat regaining sufficient strength -to resume his crawling on rimey tiles I made a search of the loft we were -in and found it extended to the gable end of the chapel, but nothing more -for my trouble beyond part of a hanging chain that came through the roof -and passed through the ceiling. I had almost missed it in the darkness, -and even when I touched it my first thought was to leave it alone. But I -took a second thought and tried the lower end, which came up as I hauled, -yard upon yard, until I had the end of it, finished with a bell-ringer's -hempen grip, in my hands. Here was a discovery if bell-pulls had been made -of rope throughout in Bicêtre prison! But a chain with an end to a bell -was not a thing to be easily borrowed. -</p> -<p> -I went back to where Father Hamilton was seated on the rafters, and told -him my discovery. -</p> -<p> -“A bell,” said he. “Faith! I never liked them. Pestilent inventions of the -enemy, that suggested duties to be done and the fleeting hours. But a -bell-rope implies a belfry on the roof and a bell in it, and the chain -that may reach the ground within the building may reach the same desirable -place without the same.” - </p> -<p> -“That's very true,” said I, struck with the thing. And straight got -through the trap and out upon the roof again. Father Hamilton puffed after -me and in a little we came upon a structure like a dovecot at the very -gable-end. “The right time to harry a nest is at night,” said I, “for then -you get all that's in it.” And I started to pull up the chain that was -fastened to the bell. -</p> -<p> -I lowered behemoth with infinite exertion till he reached the ground -outside the prison grounds in safety, wrapped the clapper of the bell in -my waistcoat, and descended hand over hand after him. -</p> -<p> -We were on the side of a broad road that dipped down the hill into a -little village. Between us and the village street, across which hung a -swinging lamp, there mounted slowly a carriage with a pair of horses. -</p> -<p> -“Bernard!” I cried, running up to it, and found it was the Swiss in the -very article of waiting for us, and he speedily drove us into Paris. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXVII -</h2> -<h3> -WE ENTER PARIS AND FIND A SANCTUARY THERE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>f the town of Paris that is so lamentably notable in these days I have -but the recollection that one takes away from a new scene witnessed under -stress of mind due to matters more immediately affecting him than the -colour, shape, and properties of things seen, and the thought I had in -certain parts of it is more clear to me to-day than the vision of the -place itself. It is, in my mind, like a fog that the bridges thundered as -our coach drove over them with our wretched fortunes on that early morning -of our escape from Bicêtre, but as clear as when it sprung to me from the -uproar of the wheels comes back the dread that the whole of this community -would be at their windows looking out to see what folks untimeously -disturbed their rest. We were delayed briefly at a gate upon the walls; I -can scarcely mind what manner of men they were that stopped us and thrust -a lantern in our faces, and what they asked eludes me altogether, but I -mind distinctly how I gasped relief when we were permitted to roll on. -Blurred, too—no better than the surplusage of dreams, is my first -picture of the river and its isles in the dawn, but, like a favourite -song, I mind the gluck of waters on the quays and that they made me think -of Earn and Cart and Clyde. -</p> -<p> -We stopped in the place of the Notre Dame at the corner of a street; the -coach drove off to a <i>remise</i> whence it had come, and we went to an -hospital called the Hôtel Dieu, in the neighbourhood, where Hamilton had a -Jesuit friend in one of the heads, and where we were accommodated in a -room that was generally set aside for clergymen. It was a place of the -most wonderful surroundings, this Hôtel Dieu, choked, as it were, among -towers, the greatest of them those of Our Lady itself that were in the -Gothic taste, regarding which Father Hamilton used to say, “<i>Dire -gothique, c'est dire mauvais gout</i>,” though, to tell the truth, I -thought the building pretty braw myself. Alleys and wynds were round about -us, and so narrow that the sky one saw between them was but a ribbon by -day, while at night they seemed no better than ravines. -</p> -<p> -'Twas at night I saw most of the city, for only in the darkness did I dare -to venture out of the Hôtel Dieu. Daundering my lone along the cobbles, I -took a pleasure in the exercise of tenanting these towering lands with -people having histories little different from the histories of the folks -far off in my Scottish home—their daughters marrying, their sons -going throughither (as we say), their bairns wakening and crying in their -naked beds, and grannies sitting by the ingle-neuk cheerfully cracking -upon ancient days. Many a time in the by-going I looked up their pend -closes seeking the eternal lovers of our own burgh towns and never finding -them, for I take it that in love the foreign character is coyer than our -own. But no matter how eagerly I went forth upon my nightly airing in a <i>roquelaure</i> -borrowed from Father Hamilton's friend, the adventure always ended, for -me, in a sort of eerie terror of those close-hemming walls, those tangled -lanes where slouched the outcast and the ne'er-do-weel, and not even the -glitter of the moon upon the river between its laden isles would comfort -me. -</p> -<p> -“La! la! la!” would Father Hamilton cry at me when I got home with a face -like a fiddle. “Art the most ridiculous rustic ever ate a cabbage or set -foot in Arcady. Why, man! the woman must be wooed—this Mademoiselle -Lutetia. Must take her front and rear, walk round her, ogling bravely. -Call her dull! call her dreadful! <i>Ciel!</i> Has the child never an eye -in his mutton head? I avow she is the queen of the earth this Paris. If I -were young and wealthy I'd buy the glittering stars in constellations and -turn them into necklets for her. With thy plaguey gift of the sonnet I'd -deave her with ecstasies and spill oceans of ink upon leagues of paper to -tell her about her eyes. Go to! Scotland, go to! Ghosts! ghosts! devil the -thing else but ghosts in thy rustic skull, for to take a fear of Lutetia -when her black hair is down of an evening and thou canst not get a glimpse -of that beautiful neck that is rounded like the same in the Psyche of -Praxiteles. Could I pare off a portion of this rotundity and go out in a -masque as Apollo I'd show thee things.” - </p> -<p> -And all he saw of Paris himself was from the windows of the hospital, -where he and I would stand by the hour looking out into the square. For -the air itself he had to take it in a little garden at the back, -surrounded by a high wall, and affording a seclusion that even the priest -could avail himself of without the hazard of discovery. He used to sit in -an arbour there in the warmth of the day, and it was there I saw another -trait of his character that helped me much to forget his shortcomings. -</p> -<p> -Over his head, within the doorway of the bower, he hung a box and placed -therein the beginnings of a bird's nest. The thing was not many hours done -when a pair of birds came boldly into his presence as he sat silent and -motionless in the bower, and began to avail themselves of so excellent a -start in householding. In a few days there were eggs in the nest, and -'twas the most marvellous of spectacles to witness the hen sit content -upon them over the head of the fat man underneath, and the cock, without -concern, fly in and out attentive on his mate. -</p> -<p> -But, indeed, the man was the friend of all helpless things, and few of the -same came his way without an instinct that told them it was so. Not the -birds in the nest alone were at ease in his society; he had but to walk -along the garden paths whistling and chirping, and there came flights of -birds about his head and shoulders, and some would even perch upon his -hand. I have never seen him more like his office than when he talked with -the creatures of the air, unless it was on another occasion when two -bairns, the offspring of an inmate in the hospital, ventured into the -garden, finding there another child, though monstrous, who had not lost -the key to the fields where blossom the flowers of infancy, and frolic is -a prayer. -</p> -<p> -But he dare not set a foot outside the walls of our retreat, for it was as -useless to hide Ballageich under a Kilmarnock bonnet as to seek a disguise -for his reverence in any suit of clothes. Bernard would come to us rarely -under cover of night, but alas! there were no letters for me now, and mine -that were sent through him were fewer than before. And there was once an -odd thing happened that put an end to these intromissions; a thing that -baffled me to understand at the time, and indeed for many a day -thereafter, but was made plain to me later on in a manner that proved how -contrary in his character was this mad priest, that was at once assassin -and the noblest friend. -</p> -<p> -Father Hamilton was not without money, though all had been taken from him -at Bicêtre. It was an evidence of the width and power of the Jesuit -movement that even in the Hôtel Dieu he could command what sums he needed, -and Bernard was habituated to come to him for moneys that might pay for -himself and the coachman and the horses at the <i>remise</i>. On the last -of these occasions I took the chance to slip a letter for Miss Walkinshaw -into his hand. Instead of putting it in his pocket he laid it down a -moment on a table, and he and I were busy packing linen for the wash when -a curious cry from Father Hamilton made us turn to see him with the letter -in his hand. -</p> -<p> -He was gazing with astonishment on the direction. -</p> -<p> -“Ah!” said he, “and so my Achilles is not consoling himself exclusively -with the Haemonian lyre, but has taken to that far more dangerous -instrument the pen. The pen, my child, is the curse of youth. When we are -young we use it for our undoing, and for the facture of regrets for after -years—even if it be no more than the reading of our wives' letters -that I'm told are a bitter revelation to the married man. And so—and -so, Monsieur Croque-mort keeps up a correspondence with the lady. H'm!” He -looked so curiously and inquiringly at me that I felt compelled to make an -explanation. -</p> -<p> -“It is quite true, Father Hamilton,” said I. “After all, you gave me so -little clerkly work that I was bound to employ my pen somehow, and how -better than with my countrywoman?” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis none of my affair—perhaps,” he said, laying down the letter. -“And yet I have a curiosity. Have we here the essential Mercury?” and he -indicated Bernard who seemed to me to have a greater confusion than the discovery -gave a cause for. -</p> -<p> -“Bernard has been good enough,” said I. “You discover two Scots, Father -Hamilton, in a somewhat sentimental situation. The lady did me the honour -to be interested in my little travels, and I did my best to keep her -informed.” - </p> -<p> -He turned away as he had been shot, hiding his face, but I saw from his -neck that he had grown as white as parchment. -</p> -<p> -“What in the world have I done?” thinks I, and concluded that he was angry -for my taking the liberty to use the dismissed servant as a go-between. In -a moment or two he turned about again, eying me closely, and at last he -put his hand upon my shoulder as a schoolmaster might do upon a boy's. -</p> -<p> -“My good Paul,” said he, “how old are you?” - </p> -<p> -“Twenty-one come Martinmas,” I said. -</p> -<p> -“Expiscate! elucidate! 'Come Martinmas,'” says he, “and what does that -mean? But no matter—twenty-one says my barbarian; sure 'tis a right -young age, a very baby of an age, an age in frocks if one that has it has -lived the best of his life with sheep and bullocks.” - </p> -<p> -“Sir,” I said, indignant, “I was in very honest company among the same -sheep and bullocks.” - </p> -<p> -“Hush!” said he, and put up his hand, eying me with compassion and -kindness. “If thou only knew it, lad, thou art due me a civil attention at -the very least. Sure there is no harm in my mentioning that thou art -mighty ingenuous for thy years. 'Tis the quality I would be the last to -find fault with, but sometimes it has its inconveniences. And Bernard”—he -turned to the Swiss who was still greatly disturbed—“Bernard is a -somewhat older gentleman. Perhaps he will say—our good Bernard—if -he was the person I have to thank for taking the sting out of the wasp, -for extracting the bullet from my pistol? Ah! I see he is the veritable -person. Adorable Bernard, let that stand to his credit!” - </p> -<p> -Then Bernard fell trembling like a saugh tree, and protested he did but -what he was told. -</p> -<p> -“And a good thing, too,” said the priest, still very pale but with no -displeasure. “And a good thing too, else poor Buhot, that I have seen an -infinity of headachy dawns with, had been beyond any interest in cards or -prisoners. For that I shall forgive you the rest that I can guess at. Take -Monsieur Grog's letter where you have taken the rest, and be gone.” - </p> -<p> -The Swiss went out much crestfallen from an interview that was beyond my -comprehension. -</p> -<p> -When he was gone Father Hamilton fell into a profound meditation, walking -up and down his room muttering to himself. -</p> -<p> -“Faith, I never had such a problem presented to me before,” said he, -stopping his walk; “I know not whether to laugh or swear. I feel that I -have been made a fool of, and yet nothing better could have happened. And -so my Croque-mort, my good Monsieur Propriety, has been writing the lady? -I should not wonder if he thought she loved him.” - </p> -<p> -“Nothing so bold,” I cried. “You might without impropriety have seen every -one of my letters, and seen in them no more than a seaman's log.” - </p> -<p> -“A seaman's log!” said he, smiling faintly and rubbing his massive chin; -“nothing would give the lady more delight, I am sure. A seaman's log! And -I might have seen them without impropriety, might I? That I'll swear was -what her ladyship took very good care to obviate. Come now, did she not -caution thee against telling me of this correspondence?” - </p> -<p> -I confessed it was so; that the lady naturally feared she might be made -the subject of light talk, and I had promised that in that respect she -should suffer nothing for her kindly interest in a countryman. -</p> -<p> -The priest laughed consumedly at this. -</p> -<p> -“Interest in her countryman!” said he. “Oh, lad, wilt be the death of me -for thy unexpected spots of innocence.” - </p> -<p> -“And as to that,” I said, “you must have had a sort of correspondence with -her yourself.” - </p> -<p> -“I!” said he. “<i>Comment!</i>” - </p> -<p> -“To be quite frank with you,” said I, “it has been the cause of some -vexatious thoughts to me that the letter I carried to the Prince was -directed in Miss Walkinshaw's hand of write, and as Buhot informed me, it -was the same letter that was to wile his Royal Highness to his fate in the -Rue des Reservoirs.” Father Hamilton groaned, as he did at any time the -terrible affair was mentioned. -</p> -<p> -“It is true, Paul, quite true,” said he, “but the letter was a forgery. -I'll give the lady the credit to say she never had a hand in it.” - </p> -<p> -“I am glad to hear that, for it removes some perplexities that have -troubled me for a while back.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah,” said he, “and your perplexities and mine are not over even now, poor -Paul. This Bernard is like to be the ruin of me yet. For you, however, I -have no fear, but it is another matter with the poor old fool from -Dixmunde.” - </p> -<p> -His voice broke, he displayed thus and otherwise so troubled a mind and so -great a reluctance to let me know the cause of it that I thought it well -to leave him for a while and let him recover his old manner. -</p> -<p> -To that end I put on my coat and hat and went out rather earlier than -usual for my evening walk. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXVIII -</h2> -<h3> -THE MAN WITH THE TARTAN WAISTCOAT -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was the first of May. But for Father Hamilton's birds, and some scanty -signs of it in the small garden, the lengthened day and the kindlier air -of the evenings, I might never have known what season it was out of the -almanac, for all seasons were much the same, no doubt, in the Isle of the -City where the priest and I sequestered. 'Twas ever the shade of the -tenements there; the towers of the churches never greened nor budded; I -would have waited long, in truth, for the scent of the lilac and the -chatter of the rook among these melancholy temples. -</p> -<p> -Till that night I had never ventured farther from the gloomy vicinity of -the hospital than I thought I could safely retrace without the necessity -of asking any one the way; but this night, more courageous, or perhaps -more careless than usual, I crossed the bridge of Notre Dame and found -myself in something like the Paris of the priest's rhapsodies and the same -all thrilling with the passion of the summer. It was not flower nor tree, -though these were not wanting, but the spirit in the air—young girls -laughing in the by-going with merriest eyes, windows wide open letting out -the sounds of songs, the pavements like a river with zesty life of -Highland hills when the frosts above are broken and the overhanging boughs -have been flattering it all the way in the valleys. -</p> -<p> -I was fair infected. My step, that had been unco' dull and heavy, I fear, -and going to the time of dirges on the Isle, went to a different tune; my -being rhymed and sang. I had got the length of the Rue de Richelieu and -humming to myself in the friendliest key, with the good-natured people -pressing about me, when of a sudden it began to rain. There was no close -in the neighbourhood where I could shelter from the elements, but in front -of me was the door of a tavern called the Tête du Duc de Burgoyne shining -with invitation, and in I went. -</p> -<p> -A fat wife sat at a counter; a pot-boy, with a cry of “V'ià !” that was -like a sheep's complaining, served two ancient citizens in skull-caps that -played the game of dominoes, and he came to me with my humble order of a -litre of ordinary and a piece of bread for the good of the house. -</p> -<p> -Outside the rain pelted, and the folks upon the pavement ran, and -by-and-by the tavern-room filled up with shelterers like myself and kept -the pot-boy busy. Among the last to enter was a group of five that took a -seat at another corner of the room than that where I sat my lone at a -little table. At first I scarcely noticed them until I heard a word of -Scots. I think the man that used it spoke of “gully-knives,” but at least -the phrase was the broadest lallands, and went about my heart. -</p> -<p> -I put down my piece of bread and looked across the room in wonder to see -that three of the men were gazing intently at myself. The fourth was hid -by those in front of him; the fifth that had spoken had a tartan waistcoat -and eyes that were like a gled's, though they were not on me. In spite of -that, 'twas plain that of me he spoke, and that I was the object of some -speculation among them. -</p> -<p> -No one that has not been lonely in a foreign town, and hungered for -communion with those that know his native tongue, can guess how much I -longed for speech with this compatriot that in dress and eye and accent -brought back the place of my nativity in one wild surge of memory. Every -bawbee in my pocket would not have been too much to pay for such a -privilege, but it might not be unless the overtures came from the persons -in the corner. -</p> -<p> -Very deliberately, though all in a commotion within, I ate my piece and -drank my wine before the stare of the three men, and at last, on the -whisper of one of them, another produced a box of dice. -</p> -<p> -“No, no!” said the man with the tartan waistcoat hurriedly, with a glance -from the tail of his eye at me, but they persisted in their purpose and -began to throw. My countryman in tartan got the last chance, of which he -seemed reluctant to avail himself till the one unseen said: “<i>Vous avez -le de''</i>, Kilbride.” - </p> -<p> -Kilbride! the name was the call of whaups at home upon the moors! -</p> -<p> -He laughed, shook, and tossed carelessly, and then the laugh was all with -them, for whatever they had played for he had seemingly lost and the dice -were now put by. -</p> -<p> -He rose somewhat confused, looked dubiously across at me with a reddening -face, and then came over with his hat in his hand. -</p> -<p> -“Pardon, Monsieur,” he began; then checked the French, and said: “Have I a -countryman here?” - </p> -<p> -“It is like enough,” said I, with a bow and looking at his tartan. “I am -from Scotland myself.” - </p> -<p> -He smiled at that with a look of some relief and took a vacant chair on -the other side of my small table. -</p> -<p> -“I have come better speed with my impudence,” said he in the Hielan' -accent, “than I expected or deserved. My name's Kilbride—MacKellar -of Kilbride—and I am here with another Highland gentleman of the -name of Grant and two or three French friends we picked up at the door of -the play-house. Are you come off the Highlands, if I make take the -liberty?” - </p> -<p> -“My name is lowland,” said I, “and I hail from the shire of Renfrew.” - </p> -<p> -“Ah,” said he, with a vanity that was laughable. “What a pity! I wish you -had been Gaelic, but of course you cannot help it being otherwise, and -indeed there are many estimable persons in the lowlands.” - </p> -<p> -“And a great wheen of Highland gentlemen very glad to join them there -too,” said I, resenting the implication. -</p> -<p> -“Of course, of course,” said he heartily. “There is no occasion for -offence.” - </p> -<p> -“Confound the offence, Mr. MacKellar!” said I. “Do you not think I am just -too glad at this minute to hear a Scottish tongue and see a tartan -waistcoat? Heilan' or Lowlan', we are all the same” when our feet are off -the heather. -</p> -<p> -“Not exactly,” he corrected, “but still and on we understand each other. -You must be thinking it gey droll, sir, that a band of strangers in a -common tavern would have the boldness to stare at you like my friends -there, and toss a dice about you in front of your face, but that is the -difference between us. If I had been in your place I would have thrown the -jug across at them, but here I am not better nor the rest, because the -dice fell to me, and I was one that must decide the wadger.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, and was I the object of a wadger?” said I, wondering what we were -coming to. -</p> -<p> -“Indeed, and that you were,” said he shamefacedly, “and I'm affronted to -tell it. But when Grant saw you first he swore you were a countryman, and -there was some difference of opinion.” - </p> -<p> -“And what, may I ask, did Kilbride side with?” - </p> -<p> -“Oh,” said he promptly, “I had never a doubt about that. I knew you were -Scots, but what beat me was to say whether you were Hielan' or Lowlan'.” - “And how, if it's a fair question, did you come to the conclusion that I -was a countryman of any sort?” said I. -</p> -<p> -He laughed softly, and “Man,” said he, “I could never make any mistake -about that, whatever of it. There's many a bird that's like the woodcock, -but the woodcock will aye be kennin' which is which, as the other man -said. Thae bones were never built on bread and wine. It's a French coat -you have there, and a cockit hat (by your leave), but to my view you were -as plainly from Scotland as if you had a blue bonnet on your head and a -sprig of heather in your lapels. And here am I giving you the strange -cow's welcome (as the other man said), and that is all inquiry and no -information. You must just be excusing our bit foolish wadger, and if the -proposal would come favourably from myself, that is of a notable family, -though at present under a sort of cloud, as the other fellow said, I would -be proud to have you share in the bottle of wine that was dependent upon -Grant's impudent wadger. I can pass my word for my friends there that they -are all gentry like ourselves—of the very best, in troth, though not -over-nice in putting this task on myself.” - </p> -<p> -I would have liked brawly to spend an hour out any company than my own, -but the indulgence was manifestly one involving the danger of discovery; -it was, as I told myself, the greatest folly to be sitting in a tavern at -all, so MacKellar's manner immediately grew cold when he saw a swithering -in my countenance. -</p> -<p> -“Of course,” said he, reddening and rising, “of course, every gentleman -has his own affairs, and I would be the last to make a song of it if you -have any dubiety about my friends and me. I'll allow the thing looks very -like a gambler's contrivance.” - </p> -<p> -“No, no, Mr. MacKellar,” said I hurriedly, unwilling to let us part like -that, “I'm swithering here just because I'm like yoursel' of it and under -a cloud of my own.” - </p> -<p> -“Dod! Is that so?” said he quite cheerfully again, and clapping down, -“then I'm all the better pleased that the thing that made the roebuck swim -the loch—and that's necessity—as the other man said, should -have driven me over here to precognosce you. But when you say you are -under a cloud, that is to make another way of it altogether, and I will -not be asking you over, for there is a gentleman there among the five of -us who might be making trouble of it.” - </p> -<p> -“Have you a brother in Glasgow College?” says I suddenly, putting a -question that had been in my mind ever since he had mentioned his name. -</p> -<p> -“Indeed, and I have that,” said he quickly, “but now he is following the -law in Edinburgh, where I am in the hopes it will be paying him better -than ever it paid me that has lost two fine old castles and the best part -of a parish by the same. You'll not be sitting there and telling me surely -that you know my young brother Alasdair?” - </p> -<p> -“Man! him and me lodged together in Lucky Grant's, in Crombie's Land in -the High Street, for two Sessions,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“What!” said MacKellar. “And you'll be the lad that snow-balled the bylie, -and your name will be Greig?” - </p> -<p> -As he said it he bent to look under the table, then drew up suddenly with -a startled face and a whisper of a whistle on his lips. -</p> -<p> -“My goodness!” said he, in a cautious tone, “and that beats all. You'll be -the lad that broke jyle with the priest that shot at Buhot, and there you -are, you <i>amadain</i>, like a gull with your red brogues on you, crying -'come and catch me' in two languages. I'm telling you to keep thae feet of -yours under this table till we're out of here, if it should be the morn's -morning. No—that's too long, for by the morn's morning Buhot's men -will be at the Hôtel Dieu, and the end of the story will be little talk -and the sound of blows, as the other man said.” - </p> -<p> -Every now and then as he spoke he would look over his shoulder with a -quick glance at his friends—a very anxious man, but no more anxious -than Paul Greig. -</p> -<p> -“Mercy on us!” said I, “do you tell me you ken all that?” - </p> -<p> -“I ken a lot more than that,” said he, “but that's the latest of my -budget, and I'm giving it to you for the sake of the shoes and my brother -Alasdair, that is a writer in Edinburgh. There's not two Scotchmen -drinking a bowl in Paris town this night that does not ken your -description, and it's kent by them at the other table there—where -better?—but because you have that coat on you that was surely made -for you when you were in better health, as the other man said, and because -your long trams of legs and red shoes are under the table there's none of -them suspects you. And now that I'm thinking of it, I would not go near -the hospital place again.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh! but the priest's there,” said I, “and it would never do for me to be -leaving him there without a warning.” - </p> -<p> -“A warning!” said MacKellar with contempt. “I'm astonished to hear you, -Mr. Greig. The filthy brock that he is!” - </p> -<p> -“If you're one of the Prince's party,” said I, “and it has every look of -it, or, indeed, whether you are or not, I'll allow you have some cause to -blame Father Hamilton, but as for me, I'm bound to him because we have -been in some troubles together.” - </p> -<p> -“What's all this about 'bound to him'?” said MacKellar with a kind of -sneer. “The dog that's tethered with a black pudding needs no pity, as the -other man said, and I would leave this fellow to shift for himself.” - </p> -<p> -“Thank you,” said I, “but I'll not be doing that.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, well,” said he, “it's your business, and let me tell you that -you're nothing but a fool to be tangled up with the creature. That's -Kilbride's advice to you. Let me tell you this more of it, that they're -not troubling themselves much about you at all now that you have given -them the information.” - </p> -<p> -“Information!” I said with a start. “What do you mean by that?” - </p> -<p> -He prepared to join his friends, with a smile of some slyness, and gave me -no satisfaction on the point. -</p> -<p> -“You'll maybe ken best yourself,” said he, “and I'm thinking your name -will have to be Robertson and yourself a decent Englishman for my friends -on the other side of the room there. Between here and yonder I'll have to -be making up a bonny lie or two that will put them off the scent of you.” - </p> -<p> -A bonny lie or two seemed to serve the purpose, for their interest in me -appeared to go no further, and by-and-by, when it was obvious that there -would be no remission of the rain, they rose to go. -</p> -<p> -The last that went out of the door turned on the threshold and looked at -me with a smile of recognition and amusement. -</p> -<p> -It was Buhot! -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXIX -</h2> -<h3> -WHEREIN THE PRIEST LEAVES ME, AND I MAKE AN INLAND VOYAGE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hat this marvel betokened was altogether beyond my comprehension, but the -five men were no sooner gone than I clapped on my hat and drew up the -collar of my coat and ran like fury through the plashing streets for the -place that was our temporary home. It must have been an intuition of the -raised that guided me; my way was made without reflection on it, at pure -hazard, and yet I landed through a multitude of winding and bewildering -streets upon the Isle of the City and in front of the Hôtel Dieu in a much -shorter time than it had taken me to get from there to the Duke of -Burgundy's Head. -</p> -<p> -I banged past the doorkeeper, jumped upstairs to the clergyman's quarters, -threw open the door and—found Father Hamilton was gone! -</p> -<p> -About the matter there could be no manner of dubiety, for he had left a -letter directed to myself upon the drawers-head. -</p> -<p> -“My Good Paul (said the epistle, that I have kept till now as a memorial -of my adventure): When you return you will discover from this that I have -taken leave <i>a l'anglaise</i>, and I fancy I can see my secretary -looking like the arms of Bourges (though that is an unkind imputation). -'Tis fated, seemingly, that there shall be no rest for the sole of the -foot of poor Father Hamilton. I had no sooner got to like a loose collar, -and an unbuttoned vest, and the seclusion of a cell, than I must be -plucked out; and now when my birds—the darlings!—are on the -very point of hatching I must make adieux. <i>Oh! la belle équipée!</i> M. -Buhot knows where I am—that's certain, so I must remove myself, and -this time I do not propose to burden M. Paul Greig with my company, for it -will be a miracle if they fail to find me. As for my dear Croque-mort, he -can have the glass coach and Jacques and Bernard, and doubtless the best -he can do with them is to take all to Dunkerque and leave them there. I -myself, I go <i>sans trompette</i>, and no inquiries will discover to him -where I go.” - </p> -<p> -As a postscript he added, “And 'twas only a sailor's log, dear lad! My -poor young Paul!” When I read the letter I was puzzled tremendously, and -at first I felt inclined to blame the priest for a scurvy flitting to rid -himself of my society, but a little deliberation convinced me that no such -ignoble consideration was at the bottom of his flight. If I read his -epistle aright the step he took was in my own interest, though how it -could be so there was no surmising. In any case he was gone; his friend in -the hospital told me he had set out behind myself, and taken a candle with -him and given a farewell visit to his birds, and almost cried about them -and about myself, and then departed for good to conceal himself, in some -other part of the city, probably, but exactly where his friend had no way -of guessing. And it was a further evidence of the priest's good feeling to -myself (if such were needed) that he had left a sum of a hundred livres -for me towards the costs of my future movements. -</p> -<p> -I left the Hôtel Dieu at midnight to wander very melancholy about the -streets for a time, and finally came out upon the river's bank, where some -small vessels hung at a wooden quay. I saw them in moonlight (for now the -rain was gone), and there rose in me such a feeling as I had often -experienced as a lad in another parish than the Mearns, to see the road -that led from strangeness past my mother's door. The river seemed a -pathway out of mystery and discontent to the open sea, and the open sea -was the same that beat about the shores of Britain, and my thought took -flight there and then to Britain, but stopped for a space, like a wearied -bird, upon the town Dunkerque. There is one who reads this who will judge -kindly, and pardon when I say that I felt a sort of tenderness for the -lady there, who was not only my one friend in France, so far as I could -guess, but, next to my mother, the only woman who knew my shame and still -retained regard for me. And thinking about Scotland and about Dunkerque, -and seeing that watery highway to them both, I was seized with a great -repugnance for the city I stood in, and felt that I must take my feet from -there at once. Father Hamilton was lost to me: that was certain. I could -no more have found him in this tanglement of streets and strange faces -than I could have found a needle in a haystack, and I felt disinclined to -make the trial. Nor was I prepared to avail myself of his offer of the -coach and horses, for to go travelling again in them would be to court -Bicêtre anew. -</p> -<p> -There was a group of busses or barges at the quay, as I have said, all -huddled together as it were animals seeking warmth, with their bows -nuzzling each other, and on one of them there were preparations being made -for her departure. A cargo of empty casks was piled up in her, lights were -being hung up at her bow and stern, and one of her crew was ashore in the -very act of casting off her ropes. At a flash it occurred to me that I had -here the safest and the speediest means of flight. -</p> -<p> -I ran at once to the edge of the quay and clumsily propounded a question -as to where the barge was bound for. -</p> -<p> -“Rouen or thereabouts,” said the master. -</p> -<p> -I asked if I could have a passage, and chinked my money in my pocket. -</p> -<p> -My French might have been but middling, but Lewis d'Or talks in a language -all can understand. -</p> -<p> -Ten minutes later we were in the fairway of the river running down through -the city which, in that last look I was ever fated to have of it, seemed -to brood on either hand of us like bordering hills, and at morning we were -at a place by name Triel. -</p> -<p> -Of all the rivers I have seen I must think the Seine the finest. It runs -in loops like my native Forth, sometimes in great, wide stretches that -have the semblance of moorland lochs. In that fine weather, with a sun -that was most genial, the country round about us basked and smiled. We -moved upon the fairest waters, by magic gardens, and the borders of -enchanted little towns. Now it would be a meadow sloping backward from the -bank, where reeds were nodding, to the horizon; now an orchard standing -upon grass that was the rarest green, then a village with rusty roofs and -spires and the continual chime of bells, with women washing upon stones or -men silent upon wherries fishing. Every link of the river opened up a -fresher wonder; if not some poplared isle that had the invitation to a -childish escapade, 'twould be another town, or the garden of a château, -maybe, with ladies walking stately on the lawns, perhaps alone, perhaps -with cavaliers about them as if they moved in some odd woodland minuet. I -can mind of songs that came from open windows, sung in women's voices; of -girls that stood drawing water and smiled on us as we passed, at home in -our craft of fortune, and still the lucky roamers seeing the world so -pleasantly without the trouble of moving a step from our galley fire. -</p> -<p> -Sometimes in the middle of the days we would stop at a red-faced, ancient -inn, with bowers whose tables almost had their feet dipped in the river, -and there would eat a meal and linger on a pot of wine while our barge -fell asleep at her tether and dreamt of the open sea. About us in these -inns came the kind country-people and talked of trivial things for the -mere sake of talking, because the weather was sweet and God so gracious; -homely sounds would waft from the byres and from the barns—the laugh -of bairns, the whistle of boys, the low of cattle. -</p> -<p> -At night we moored wherever we might be, and once I mind of a place called -Andelys, selvedged with chalky cliffs and lorded over by a castle called -Gaillard, that had in every aspect of it something of the clash of weapons -and of trumpet-cry. The sky shone blue through its gaping gables and its -crumbling windows like so many eyes; the birds that wheeled all round it -seemed to taunt it for its inability. The old wars over, the deep fosse -silent, the strong men gone—and there at its foot the thriving town -so loud with sounds of peaceful trade! Whoever has been young, and has the -eye for what is beautiful and great and stately, must have felt in such a -scene that craving for companionship that tickles like a laugh within the -heart—that longing for some one to feel with him, and understand, -and look upon with silence. In my case 'twas two women I would have there -with me just to look upon this Gaillard and the town below it. -</p> -<p> -Then the bending, gliding river again, the willow and the aspen edges, the -hazy orchards and the emerald swards; hamlets, towns, farm-steadings, -châteaux, kirks, and mills; the flying mallard, the leaping perch, the -silver dawns, the starry nights, the ripple of the water in my dreams, and -at last the city of Rouen. My ship of fortune went no further on. -</p> -<p> -I slept a night in an inn upon the quay, and early the next morning, -having bought a pair of boots to save my red shoes, I took the road over a -hill that left Rouen and all its steeples, reeking at the bottom of a -bowl. I walked all day, through woods and meadows and trim small towns and -orchards, and late in the gloaming came upon the port of Havre de Grace. -</p> -<p> -The sea was sounding there, and the smell of it was like a salutation. I -went out at night from my inn, and fairly joyed in its propinquity, and -was so keen on it that I was at the quay before it was well daylight. The -harbour was full of vessels. It was not long ere I got word of one that -was in trim for Dunkerque, to which I took a passage, and by favour of -congenial weather came upon the afternoon of the second day. -</p> -<p> -Dunkerque was more busy with soldiers than ever, all the arms of France -seemed to be collected there, and ships of war and flat-bottomed boats -innumerable were in the harbour. -</p> -<p> -At the first go-off I made for the lodgings I had parted from so -unceremoniously on the morning of that noisy glass coach. -</p> -<p> -The house, as I have said before, was over a baker's shop, and was reached -by a common outer stair that rose from a court-yard behind. Though -internally the domicile was well enough, indeed had a sort of -old-fashioned gentility, and was kept by a woman whose man had been a -colonel of dragoons, but now was a tippling pensioner upon the king, and -his own wife's labours, it was, externally, somewhat mean, the place a -solid merchant of our own country might inhabit, but scarce the place -wherein to look for royal blood. What was my astonishment, then, when, as -I climbed the stair, I came face to face with the Prince! -</p> -<p> -I felt the stair swing off below me and half distrusted my senses, but I -had the presence of mind to take my hat off. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Bon jour, Monsieur</i>, said he, with a slight hiccough, and I saw -that he was flushed and meant to pass with an evasion. There and then a -daft notion to explain myself and my relations with the priest who had -planned his assassination came to me, and I stopped and spoke. -</p> -<p> -“Your Royal Highness—-” I began, and at that he grew purple. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Cest un drôle de corps!</i>” said he, and, always speaking in French, -said he again: -</p> -<p> -“You make an error, Monsieur; I have not the honour of Monsieur's -acquaintance,” and looked at me with a bold eye and a disconcerting. -</p> -<p> -“Greig,” I blurted, a perfect lout, and surely as blind as a mole that -never saw his desire, “I had the honour to meet your Royal Highness at -Versailles.” - </p> -<p> -“My Royal Highness!” said he, this time in English. “I think Monsieur -mistakes himself.” And then, when he saw how crestfallen I was, he smiled -and hiccoughed again. “You are going to call on our good Clancarty,” said -he. “In that case please tell him to translate to you the proverb, <i>Oui -phis sait plus se tait</i>.” - </p> -<p> -“There is no necessity, Monsieur,” I answered promptly. “Now that I look -closer I see I was mistaken. The person I did you the honour to take you -for was one in whose opinion (if he took the trouble to think of me at -all) I should have liked to re-establish myself, that was all.” - </p> -<p> -In spite of his dissipation there was something noble in his manner—a -style of the shoulders and the hands, a poise of the head that I might -practise for years and come no closer on than any nowt upon my father's -fields. It was that which I remember best of our engagement on the stair, -and that at the last of it he put out his hand to bid me good-day. -</p> -<p> -“My name,” says he, “is Monsieur Albany so long as I am in Dunkerque. <i>À -bon entendeur salut!</i> I hope we may meet again, Monsieur Greig.” He -looked down at the black boots I had bought me in Rouen. “If I might take -the liberty to suggest it,” said he, smiling, “I should abide by the -others. I have never seen their wearer wanting wit, <i>esprit</i>, and -prudence—which are qualities that at this moment I desire above all -in those that count themselves my friends.” - </p> -<p> -And with that he was gone. I watched him descend the remainder of the -stair with much deliberation, and did not move a step myself until the tip -of his scabbard had gone round the corner of the close. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXX -</h2> -<h3> -A GUID CONCEIT OF MYSELF LEADS ME FAR ASTRAY -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">C</span>lancarty and Thurot were playing cards, so intent upon that recreation -that I was in the middle of the floor before they realised who it was the -servant had ushered in. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu! Monsieur Blanc-bec! Il n'y a pas de petit chez soi!</i>” - cried Thurot, dropping his hand, and they jumped to their feet to greet -me. -</p> -<p> -“I'll be hanged if you want assurance, child,” said Clancarty, surveying -me from head to foot as if I were some curiosity. “Here's your exploits -ringing about the world, and not wholly to your credit, and you must walk -into the very place where they will find the smallest admiration.” - </p> -<p> -“Not meaning the lodging of Captain Thurot,” said I. “Whatever my -reputation may be with the world, I make bold to think he and you will -believe me better than I may seem at the first glance.” - </p> -<p> -“The first glance!” cried his lordship. “Gad, the first glance suggests -that Bicêtre agreed with our Scotsman. Sure, they must have fed you on -oatmeal. I'd give a hatful of louis d'or to see Father Hamilton, for if he -throve so marvellously in the flesh as his secretary he must look like the -side of St. Eloi. One obviously grows fat on regicide—fatter than a -few poor devils I know do upon devotion to princes.” - </p> -<p> -Thurot's face assured me that I was as welcome there as ever I had been. -He chid Clancarty for his badinage, and told me he was certain all along -that the first place I should make for after my flight from Bicêtre (of -which all the world knew) would be Dunkerque. “And a good thing too, M. -Greig,” said he. -</p> -<p> -“Not so good,” says I, “but what I must meet on your stair the very man-” - </p> -<p> -“Stop!” he cried, and put his finger on his lip. “In these parts we know -only a certain M. Albany, who is, my faith! a good friend of your own if -you only knew it.” - </p> -<p> -“I scarcely see how that can be,” said I. “If any man has a cause to -dislike me it is his Roy—” - </p> -<p> -“M. Albany,” corrected Thurot. -</p> -<p> -“It is M. Albany, for whom, it seems, I was the decoy in a business that -makes me sick to think on. I would expect no more than that he had gone -out there to send the officers upon my heels, and for me to be sitting -here may be simple suicide.” - </p> -<p> -Clancarty laughed. “Tis the way of youth,” said he, “to attach far too -much importance to itself. Take our word for it, M. Greig, all France is -not scurrying round looking for the nephew of Andrew Greig. Faith, and I -wonder at you, my dear Thurot, that has an Occasion here—a veritable -Occasion—and never so much as says bottle. Stap me if I have a -friend come to me from a dungeon without wishing him joy in a glass of -burgundy!” - </p> -<p> -The burgundy was forthcoming, and his lordship made the most of it, while -Captain Thurot was at pains to assure me that my position was by no means -so bad as I considered it. In truth, he said, the police had their own -reasons for congratulating themselves on my going out of their way. They -knew very well, as M. Albany did, that I had been the catspaw of the -priest, who was himself no better than that same, and for that reason as -likely to escape further molestation as I was myself. -</p> -<p> -Thurot spoke with authority, and hinted that he had the word of M. Albany -himself for what he said. I scarcely knew which pleased me best—that -I should be free myself or that the priest should have a certain security -in his concealment. -</p> -<p> -I told them of Buhot, and how oddly he had shown his complacence to his -escaped prisoner in the tavern of the Duke of Burgundy's Head. At that -they laughed. -</p> -<p> -“Buhot!” cried his lordship. “My faith! Ned must have been tickled to see -his escaped prisoner in such a cosy <i>cachette</i> as the Duke's Head, -where he and I, and Andy Greig—ay! and this same priest—tossed -many a glass, <i>Ciel!</i> the affair runs like a play. All it wants to -make this the most delightful of farces is that you should have Father -Hamilton outside the door to come in at a whistle. Art sure the fat old -man is not in your waistcoat pocket? Anyhow, here's his good health....” - </p> -<h3> -=== MISSING PAGES (274-288) === -</h3> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXI. -</h2> -<h3> -THE BARD OF LOVE WHO WROTE WITH OLD MATERIALS -</h3> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXII. -</h2> -<h3> -THE DUEL IN THE AUBERGE GARDEN -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>hoever it was that moved at the instigation of Madame on my behalf, he -put speed into the business, for the very next day I was told my -sous-lieutenancy was waiting at the headquarters of the regiment. A -severance that seemed almost impossible to me before I learned from the -lady's own lips that her heart was elsewhere engaged was now a thing to -long for eagerly, and I felt that the sooner I was out of Dunkerque and -employed about something more important than the tying of my hair and the -teasing of my heart with thinking, the better for myself. Teasing my -heart, I say, because Miss Walkinshaw had her own reasons for refusing to -see me any more, and do what I might I could never manage to come face to -face with her. Perhaps on the whole it was as well, for what in the world -I was to say to the lady, supposing I were privileged, it beats me now to -fancy. Anyhow, the opportunity never came my way, though, for the few days -that elapsed before I departed from Dunkerque, I spent hours in the Rue de -la Boucherie sipping sirops on the terrace of the Café Coignet opposite -her lodging, or at night on the old game of humming ancient love-songs to -her high and distant window. All I got for my pains were brief and -tantalising glimpses of her shadow on the curtains; an attenuate kind of -bliss it must be owned, and yet counted by Master Red-Shoes (who suffered -from nostalgia, not from love, if he had had the sense to know it) a very -delirium of delight. -</p> -<p> -One night there was an odd thing came to pass. But, first of all, I must -tell that more than once of an evening, as I would be in the street and -staring across at Miss Walkinshaw's windows, I saw his Royal Highness in -the neighbourhood. His cloak might be voluminous, his hat dragged down -upon the very nose of him, but still the step was unmistakable. If there -had been the smallest doubt of it, there came one evening when he passed -me so close in the light of an oil lamp that I saw the very blotches on -his countenance. What was more, he saw and recognised me, though he passed -without any other sign than the flash of an eye and a halfstep of -hesitation. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/304.jpg" alt="304" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -“H'm,” thinks I, “here's Monsieur Albany looking as if he might, like -myself, be trying to content himself with the mere shadows of things.” - </p> -<p> -He saw me more than once, and at last there came a night when a fellow in -drink came staving down the street on the side I was on and jostled me in -the by-going without a word of apology. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Pardonnez, Monsieur!</i>” said I in irony, with my hat off to give him -a hint at his manners. -</p> -<p> -He lurched a second time against me and put up his hand to catch my chin, -as if I were a wench, “<i>Mon Dieu! Monsieur Blanc-bec</i>, 'tis time you -were home,” said he in French, and stuttered some ribaldry that made me -smack his face with an open hand. -</p> -<p> -“I saw his Royal Highness in the neighbourhood—” - </p> -<p> -At once he sobered with suspicious suddenness if I had had the sense to -reflect upon it, and gave me his name and direction as one George Bonnat, -of the Marine. “Monsieur will do me the honour of a meeting behind the -Auberge Cassard after <i>petit dejeuner</i> to-morrow,” said he, and named -a friend. It was the first time I was ever challenged. It should have rung -in the skull of me like an alarm, but I cannot recall at this date that my -heart beat a stroke the faster, or that the invitation vexed me more than -if it had been one to the share of a bottle of wine. “It seems a pretty -ceremony about a cursed impertinence on the part of a man in liquor,” I -said, “but I'm ready to meet you either before or after petit déjeuner, as -it best suits you, and my name's Greig, by your leave.” - </p> -<p> -“Very well, Monsieur Greig,” said he; “except that you stupidly impede the -pavement and talk French like a Spanish cow (<i>comme une vache espagnole</i>), -you seem a gentleman of much accommodation. Eight o'clock then, behind the -<i>auberge</i>,” and off went Sir Ruffler, singularly straight and -business-like, with a profound <i>congé</i> for the unfortunate wretch he -planned to thrust a spit through in the morning. -</p> -<p> -I went home at once, to find Thurot and Clancarty at lansquenet. They were -as elate at my story as if I had been asked to dine with Louis. -</p> -<p> -“Gad, 'tis an Occasion!” cried my lord, and helped himself, as usual, with -a charming sentiment: “<i>A demain les affaires sérieuses</i>; to-night -we'll pledge our friend!” - </p> -<p> -Thurot evinced a flattering certainty of my ability to break down M. -Bonnat's guard in little or no time. “A crab, this Bonnat,” said he. “Why -he should pick a quarrel with you I cannot conceive, for 'tis well known -the man is M. Albany's creature. But, no matter, we shall tickle his ribs, -M. Paul. <i>Ma foi!</i> here's better gaming than your pestilent cards. -I'd have every man in the kingdom find an affair for himself once a month -to keep his spleen in order.” - </p> -<p> -“This one's like to put mine very much out of order with his iron,” I -said, a little ruefully recalling my last affair. -</p> -<p> -“What!” cried Thurot, “after all my lessons! And this Bonnat a crab too! -Fie! M. Paul. And what an he pricks a little? a man's the better for some -iron in his system now and then. Come, come, pass down these foils, my -lord, and I shall supple the arms of our Paul.” - </p> -<p> -We had a little exercise, and then I went to bed. The two sat in my room, -and smoked and talked till late in the night, while I pretended to be fast -asleep. But so far from sleep was I, that I could hear their watches -ticking in their fobs. Some savagery, some fearful want of soul in them, -as evidenced by their conversation, horrified me. It was no great matter -that I was to risk my life upon a drunkard's folly, but for the first time -since I had come into the port of Dunkerque, and knew these men beside my -bed, there intruded a fiery sense of alienation. It seemed a dream—a -dreadful dream, that I should be lying in a foreign land, upon the eve, -perhaps, of my own death or of another manslaughter, and in a -correspondence with two such worldly men as those that sat there recalling -combats innumerable with never a thought of the ultimate fearful -retribution. Compared with this close room, where fumed the wine and weed, -and men with never a tie domestic were paying away their lives in the -small change of trivial pleasures, how noble and august seemed our old -life upon the moors! -</p> -<p> -When they were gone I fell asleep and slept without a break till Thurot's -fingers drummed reveille on my door. I jumped into the sunshine of a -lovely day that streamed into the room, soused my head in water and in a -little stood upon the street with my companion. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Bon matin</i>, Paul!” he cried cheerfully. “Faith, you sleep sur <i>les -deux oreilles</i>, and we must be marching briskly to be at M. Bonnat's -rendezvous at eight o'clock.” - </p> -<p> -We went through the town and out upon its edge at the Calais road. The sky -was blue like another sea; the sea itself was all unvexed by wave; a -sweeter day for slaughtering would pass the wit of man to fancy. Thurot -hummed an air as he walked along the street, but I was busy thinking of -another morning in Scotland, when I got a bitter lesson I now seemed -scandalously soon to have forgotten. By-and-by we came to the inn. It -stood by itself upon the roadside, with a couple of workmen sitting on a -bench in front dipping their morning crusts in a common jug of wine. -Thurot entered and made some inquiry; came out radiant. “Monsieur is not -going to disappoint us, as I feared,” said he; and led me quickly behind -the <i>auberge</i>. We passed through the yard, where a servant-girl -scoured pots and pans and sang the while as if the world were wholly -pleasant in that sunshine; we crossed a tiny rivulet upon a rotten plank -and found ourselves in an orchard. Great old trees stood silent in the -finest foggy grass, their boughs all bursting out into blossom, and the -air scent-thick-ened; everywhere the birds were busy; it seemed a world of -piping song. I thought to myself there could be no more incongruous place -nor season for our duelling, and it was with half a gladness I looked -around the orchard, finding no one there. -</p> -<p> -“Bah! our good Bonnat's gone!” cried Thurot, vastly chagrined and tugging -at his watch. “That comes of being five minutes too late, and I cannot, by -my faith, compliment the gentleman upon his eagerness to meet you.” - </p> -<p> -I was mistaken but for a second; then I spied my fiery friend of the -previous evening lying on his back beneath the oldest of the trees, his -hat tilted over his eyes, as if he had meant to snatch a little sleep in -spite of the dazzling sunshine. He rose to his feet on our approach, swept -off his hat courteously, and hailed Thurot by name. -</p> -<p> -“What, you, Antoine! I am ravished! For, look you, the devil's in all my -friends that I can get none of them to move a step at this hour of the -morning, and I have had to come to M. Greig without a second. Had I known -his friend was Captain Thurot I should not have vexed myself. Doubtless M. -Greig has no objection to my entrusting my interests as well as his own in -the hands of M. le Capitaine?” - </p> -<p> -I bowed my assent. Captain Thurot cast a somewhat cold and unsatisfied eye -upon the ruffler, protesting the thing was unusual. -</p> -<p> -Bonnat smiled and shrugged his shoulders, put off his coat with much -deliberation, and took up his place upon the sward, where I soon followed -him. -</p> -<p> -“Remember, it is no fool, this crab,” whispered Captain Thurot as he took -my coat from me. “And 'tis two to one on him who prefers the parry to the -attack.” - </p> -<p> -I had been reading Molière's “Bourgeois Gentilhomme” the previous morning, -and as I faced my assailant I had the fencing-master's words as well as -Captain Thurot's running in my ears: “To give and not receive is the -secret of the sword.” It may appear incredible, but it seemed physically a -trivial affair I was engaged upon until I saw the man Bonnat's eye. He -wore a smile, but his eye had the steely glint of murder! It was as -unmistakable as if his tongue confessed it, and for a second I trembled at -the possibilities of the situation. He looked an unhealthy dog; sallow -exceedingly on the neck, which had the sinews so tight they might have -twanged like wire, and on his cheeks, that he seemed to suck in with a -gluttonous exultation such as a gross man shows in front of a fine meal. -</p> -<p> -“Are you ready, gentlemen?” said Thurot; and we nodded. “Then in guard!” - said he. -</p> -<p> -We saluted, fell into position and thrust simultaneously in tierce, -parrying alike, then opened more seriously. -</p> -<p> -In Thurot's teaching of me there was one lesson he most unweariedly -insisted on, whose object was to keep my point in a straight line and -parry in the smallest possible circles. I had every mind of it now, but -the cursed thing was that this Bonnat knew it too. He fenced, like an -Italian, wholly from the wrist, and, crouched upon his knees, husbanded -every ounce of energy by the infrequency and the brevity of his thrusts. -His lips drew back from his teeth, giving him a most villainous aspect, -and he began to press in the lower lines. -</p> -<p> -In a side-glance hazarded I saw the anxiety of Thurot's eye and realised -his apprehension. I broke ground, and still, I think, was the bravo's -match but for the alarm of Thurot's eye. It confused me so much that I -parried widely and gave an opening for a thrust that caught me slightly on -the arm, and dyed my shirt-sleeve crimson in a moment. -</p> -<p> -“Halt!” cried Thurot, and put up his arm. -</p> -<p> -I lowered my weapon, thinking the bout over, and again saw murder in -Bonnat's eye. He lunged furiously at my chest, missing by a miracle. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Scélérat!</i>” cried Thurot, and, in an uncontrollable fury at the -action, threw himself upon Bonnat and disarmed him. -</p> -<p> -They glared at each other for a minute, and Thurot finally cast the -other's weapon over a hedge. “So much for M. Bonnat!” said he. “This is -our valiant gentleman, is it? To stab like an assassin!” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Oh, malédiction!</i>” said the other, little abashed, and shrugging -his shoulders as he lifted his coat to put it on. “Talking of -assassination, I but did the duty of the executioner in his absence, and -proposed to kill the man who meditated the same upon the Prince.” - </p> -<p> -“The Prince!” cried Thurot. “Why 'tis the Prince's friend, and saved his -life!” - </p> -<p> -“I know nothing about that,” said Bonnat; “but do you think I'd be out -here at such a cursed early hour fencing if any other than M. Albany had -sent me? <i>Pardieu!</i> the whole of you are in the farce, but I always -counted you the Prince's friend, and here you must meddle when I do as I -am told to do!” - </p> -<p> -“And you tell me, Jean Bonnat, that you take out my friend to murder him -by M. Albany's command?” cried Thurot incredulous. -</p> -<p> -“What the devil else?” replied the bravo. “'Tis true M. Albany only -mentioned that M. des Souliers Rouges was an obstruction in the Rue de la -Boucherie and asked me to clear him out of Dunkerque, but 'twere a tidier -job to clear him altogether. And here is a great pother about an English -hog!” - </p> -<p> -I was too busily stanching my wound, that was scarce so serious as it -appeared, to join in this dispute, but the allusion to the Prince and the -Rue de la Boucherie extremely puzzled me. I turned to Bonnat with a cry -for an explanation. -</p> -<p> -“What!” I says, “does his Royal Highness claim any prerogative to the Rue -de la Boucherie? I'm unconscious that I ever did either you or him the -smallest harm, and if my service—innocent enough as it was—with -the priest Hamilton was something to resent, his Highness has already -condoned the offence.” - </p> -<p> -“For the sake of my old friend M. le Capitaine here I shall give you one -word of advice,” said Bonnat, “and that is, to evacuate Dunkerque as -sharply as you may. M. Albany may owe you some obligement, as I've heard -him hint himself, but nevertheless your steps will be safer elsewhere than -in the Rue de la Boucherie.” - </p> -<p> -“There is far too much of the Rue de la Boucherie about this,” I said, -“and I hope no insult is intended to certain friends I have or had there.” - </p> -<p> -At this they looked at one another. The bravo (for so I think I may at -this time call him) whistled curiously and winked at the other, and, in -spite of himself, Captain Thurot was bound to laugh. -</p> -<p> -“And has M. Paul been haunting the Rue de la Boucherie, too?” said he. -“That, indeed, is to put another face on the business. 'Tis, <i>ma foi!</i> -to expect too much of M. Albany's complaisance. After that there is -nothing for us but to go home. And, harkee! M. Bonnat, no more Venetian -work, or, by St. Denys, I shall throw you into the harbour.” - </p> -<p> -“You must ever have your joke, my noble M. le Capitaine,” said Bonnat -brazenly, and tucked his hat on the side of the head. “M. Blanc-bec there -handles <i>arme blanche</i> rather prettily, thanks, no doubt, to the -gallant commander of the <i>Roi Rouge</i>, but if he has a mother let me -suggest the wisdom of his going back to her.” And with that and a <i>congé</i> -he left us to enter the <i>auberge</i>. -</p> -<p> -Thurot and I went into the town. He was silent most of the way, ruminating -upon this affair, which it was plain he could unravel better than I could, -yet he refused to give me a hint at the cause of it. I pled with him -vainly for an explanation of the Prince's objection to my person. “I -thought he had quite forgiven my innocent part in the Hamilton affair,” I -said. -</p> -<p> -“And so he had,” said Thurot. “I have his own assurances.” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis scarcely like it when he sets a hired assassin on my track to lure -me into a duel.” - </p> -<p> -“My dear boy,” said Thurot, “you owe him all—your escape from -Bicêtre, which could easily have been frustrated; and the very prospect of -the lieutenancy in the Regiment d'Auvergne.” - </p> -<p> -“What! he has a hand in this?” I cried. -</p> -<p> -“Who else?” said he. “'Tis not the fashion in France to throw unschooled -Scots into such positions out of hand, and only princes may manage it. It -seems, then, that we have our Prince in two moods, which is not uncommon -with the same gentleman. He would favour you for the one reason, and for -the other he would cut your throat. M. Tête-de-fer is my eternal puzzle. -And the deuce is that he has, unless I am much mistaken, the same reason -for favouring and hating you.” - </p> -<p> -“And what might that be?” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Who, rather?” said Thurot, and we were walking down the Rue de la -Boucherie. “Why, then, if you must have pointed out to you what is under -your very nose, 'tis the lady who lives here. She is the god from the -machine in half a hundred affairs no less mysterious, and I wish she were -anywhere else than in Dunkerque. But, anyway, she sent you with Hamilton, -and she has secured the favour of the Prince for you, and now—though -she may not have attempted it—she has gained you the same person's -enmity.” - </p> -<p> -I stopped in the street and turned to him. “All this is confused enough to -madden me,” I said, “and rather than be longer in the mist I shall brave -her displeasure, compel an audience, and ask her for an explanation.” - </p> -<p> -“Please yourself,” said Thurot, and seeing I meant what I said he left me. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXIII -</h2> -<h3> -FAREWELL TO MISS WALKINSHAW -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was under the lash of a natural exasperation I went up Mademoiselle's -stairs determined on an interview. Bernard (of all men in the world!) -responded to my knock. I could have thrashed him with a cane if the same -had been handy, but was bound to content myself with the somewhat barren -comfort of affecting that I had never set eyes on him before. He smiled at -first, as if not unpleased to see me, but changed his aspect at the -unresponse of mine. -</p> -<p> -“I desire to see Miss Walkinshaw,” said I. -</p> -<p> -The rogue blandly intimated that she was not at home. There is more truth -in a menial eye than in most others, and this man's fashionable falsehood -extended no further than his lips. I saw quite plainly he was acting upon -instructions, and, what made it the more uncomfortable for him, he saw -that I saw. -</p> -<p> -“Very well, I shall have the pleasure of waiting in the neighbourhood till -she returns,” I said, and leaned against the railing. This frightened him -somewhat, and he hastened to inform me that he did not know when she might -return. -</p> -<p> -“It does not matter,” I said coolly, inwardly pleased to find my courage -much higher in the circumstances than I had expected. “If it's midnight -she shall find me here, for I have matters of the first importance upon -which to consult her.” - </p> -<p> -He was more disturbed than ever, hummed and hawed and hung upon the -door-handle, making it very plainly manifest that his instructions had not -gone far enough, and that he was unable to make up his mind how he was -further to comport himself to a visitor so persistent. Then, unable to get -a glance of recognition from me, and resenting further the inconvenience -to which I was subjecting him, he rose to an impertinence—the first -(to do him justice) I had ever found in him. -</p> -<p> -“Will Monsieur,” said he, “tell me who I shall say called?” - </p> -<p> -The thrust was scarcely novel. I took it smiling, and “My good rogue,” - said I, “if the circumstances were more favourable I should have the -felicity of giving you an honest drubbing.” He got very red. “Come, -Bernard,” I said, adopting another tone, “I think you owe me some -consideration. And will you not, in exchange for my readiness to give you -all the information you required some time ago for your employers, tell me -the truth and admit that Mademoiselle is within?” - </p> -<p> -He was saved an answer by the lady herself. -</p> -<p> -“La! Mr. Greig!” she cried, coming to the door and putting forth a -welcoming hand. “My good Bernard has no discrimination, or he should -except my dear countryman from my general orders against all visitors.” So -much in French; and then, as she led the way to her parlour, “My dear man -of Mearns, you are as dour as—as dour as—” - </p> -<p> -“As a donkey,” I finished, seeing she hesitated for a likeness. “And I -feel very much like that humble beast at this moment.” - </p> -<p> -“I do not wonder at it,” said she, throwing herself in a chair. “To thrust -yourself upon a poor lonely woman in this fashion!” - </p> -<p> -“I am the ass—I have been the ass—it would appear, in other -respects as well.” - </p> -<p> -She reddened, and tried to conceal her confusion by putting back her hair, -that somehow escaped in a strand about her ears. I had caught her rather -early in the morning; she had not even the preparation of a <i>petit lever</i>; -and because of a certain chagrin at being discovered scarcely looking her -best her first remarks were somewhat chilly. -</p> -<p> -“Well, at least you have persistency, I'll say that of it,” she went on, -with a light laugh, and apparently uncomfortable. “And for what am I -indebted to so early a visit from my dear countryman?” - </p> -<p> -“It was partly that I might say a word of thanks personally to you for -your offices in my poor behalf. The affair of the Regiment d'Auvergne is -settled with a suddenness that should be very gratifying to myself, for it -looks as if King Louis could not get on another day wanting my -distinguished services. I am to join the corps at the end of the month, -and must leave Dunkerque forthwith. That being so, it was only proper I -should come in my own person to thank you for your good offices.” - </p> -<p> -“Do not mention it,” she said hurriedly. “I am only too glad that I could -be of the smallest service to you.” - </p> -<p> -“I cannot think,” I went on, “what I can have done to warrant your -displeasure with me.” - </p> -<p> -“Displeasure!” she replied. “Who said I was displeased?” - </p> -<p> -“What am I to think, then? I have been refused the honour of seeing you -for this past week.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, not displeasure, Mr. Greig,” she said, trifling with her rings. -“Let us be calling it prudence. I think that might have suggested itself -as a reason to a gentleman of Mr. Greig's ordinary intuitions.” - </p> -<p> -“It's a virtue, this prudence, a Greig could never lay claim to,” I said. -“And I must tell you that, where the special need for it arises now, and -how it is to be made manifest, is altogether beyond me.” - </p> -<p> -“No matter,” said she, and paused. “And so you are going to the frontier, -and are come to say good-bye to me?” - </p> -<p> -“Now that you remind me that is exactly my object,” I said, rising to go. -She did not have the graciousness even to stay me, but rose too, as if she -felt the interview could not be over a moment too soon. And yet I noticed -a certain softening in her manner that her next words confirmed. -</p> -<p> -“And so you go, Mr. Greig?” she said. “There's but the one thing I would -like to say to my friend, and that's that I should like him not to think -unkindly of one that values his good opinion—if she were worthy to -have it. The honest and unsuspecting come rarely my way nowadays, and now -that I'm to lose them I feel like to greet.” She was indeed inclined to -tears, and her lips were twitching, but I was not enough rid of my -annoyance to be moved much by such a demonstration. -</p> -<p> -“I have profited much by your society, Miss Walkinshaw,” I said. “You -found me a boy, and what way it happens I do not know, but it's a man -that's leaving you. You made my stay here much more pleasant than it would -otherwise have been, and this last kindness—that forces me away from -you—is one more I have to thank you for.” - </p> -<p> -She was scarcely sure whether to take this as a compliment or the reverse, -and, to tell the truth, I meant it half and half. -</p> -<p> -“I owed all the little I could do to my countryman,” said she. -</p> -<p> -“And I hope I have been useful,” I blurted out, determined to show her I -was going with open eyes. -</p> -<p> -Somewhat stricken she put her hand upon my arm. “I hope you will forgive -that, Mr. Greig,” she said, leaving no doubt that she had jumped to my -meaning. -</p> -<p> -“There is nothing to forgive,” I said shortly. “I am proud that I was of -service, not to you alone but to one in the interests of whose house some -more romantical Greigs than I have suffered. My only complaint is that the -person in question seems scarcely to be grateful for the little share I -had unconsciously in preserving his life.” - </p> -<p> -“I am sure he is very grateful,” she cried hastily, and perplexed. “I may -tell you that he was the means of getting you the post in the regiment.” - </p> -<p> -“So I have been told,” I said, and she looked a little startled. “So I -have been told. It may be that I'll be more grateful by-and-by, when I see -what sort of a post it is. In the meantime, I have my gratitude greatly -hampered by a kind of inconsistency in the—in the person's actings -towards myself!” - </p> -<p> -“Inconsistency!” she repeated bitterly. “That need not surprise you! But I -do not understand.” - </p> -<p> -“It is simply that—perhaps to hasten me to my duties—his Royal -Highness this morning sent a ruffian to fight me.” - </p> -<p> -I have never seen a face so suddenly change as hers did when she heard -this; for ordinary she had a look of considerable amiability, a soft, kind -eye, a ready smile that had the hint (as I have elsewhere said) of -melancholy, a voice that, especially in the Scots, was singularly -attractive. A temper was the last thing I would have charged her with, yet -now she fairly flamed, “What is this you are telling me, Paul Greig?” she -cried, her eyes stormy, her bosom beginning to heave. “Oh, just that M. -Albany (as he calls himself) has some grudge against me, for he sent a man—Bonnat—to -pick a quarrel with me, and by Bonnat's own confession the duel that was -to ensue was to be <i>à outrance</i>. But for the intervention of a -friend, half an hour ago, there would have been a vacancy already in the -Regiment d'Auvergne.” - </p> -<p> -“Good heavens!” she cried. “You must be mistaken. What object in the wide -world could his Royal Highness have in doing you any harm? You were an -instrument in the preservation of his life.” - </p> -<p> -I bowed extremely low, with a touch of the courts I had not when I landed -first in Dunkerque. -</p> -<p> -“I have had the distinguished honour, Miss Walkinshaw,” I said. “And I -should have thought that enough to counterbalance my unfortunate and -ignorant engagement with his enemies.” - </p> -<p> -“But why, in Heaven's name, should he have a shred of resentment against -you?” - </p> -<p> -“It seems,” I said, “that it has something to do with my boldness in using -the Rue de la Boucherie for an occasional promenade.” - </p> -<p> -She put her two hands up to her face for a moment, but I could see the -wine-spill in between, and her very neck was in a flame. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, the shame! the shame!” she cried, and began to walk up and down the -room like one demented. “Am I to suffer these insults for ever in spite of -all that I may do to prove—to prove——” - </p> -<p> -She pulled herself up short, put down her hands from a face exceedingly -distressed, and looked closely at me. “What must you think of me, Mr. -Greig?” she asked suddenly in quite a new key. -</p> -<p> -“What do I think of myself to so disturb you?” I replied. “I do not know -in what way I have vexed you, but to do so was not at all in my intention. -I must tell you that I am not a politician, and that since I came here -these affairs of the Prince and all the rest of it are quite beyond my -understanding. If the cause of the white cockade brought you to France, -Miss Walkinshaw, as seems apparent, I cannot think you are very happy in -it nowadays, but that is no affair of mine.” - </p> -<p> -She stared at me. “I hope,” said she, “you are not mocking me?” - </p> -<p> -“Heaven forbid!” I said. “It would be the last thing I should presume to -do, even if I had a reason. I owe you, after all, nothing but the deepest -gratitude.” - </p> -<p> -Beyond the parlour we stood in was a lesser room that was the lady's -boudoir. We stood with our backs to it, and I know not how much of our -conversation had been overheard when I suddenly turned at the sound of a -man's voice, and saw his Royal Highness standing in the door! -</p> -<p> -I could have rubbed my eyes out of sheer incredulity, for that he should -be in that position was as if I had come upon a ghost. He stood with a -face flushed and frowning, rubbing his eyes, and there was something in -his manner that suggested he was not wholly sober. -</p> -<p> -“I'll be cursed,” said he, “if I haven't been asleep. Deuce take -Clancarty! He kept me at cards till dawn this morning, and I feel as if I -had been all night on heather. <i>Pardieu</i>——!” - </p> -<p> -He pulled himself up short and stared, seeing me for the first time. His -face grew purple with annoyance. “A thousand pardons!” he cried with -sarcasm, and making a deep bow. “I was not aware that I intruded on -affairs.” - </p> -<p> -Miss Walkinshaw turned to him sharply. -</p> -<p> -“There is no intrusion,” said she, “but honesty, in the person of my dear -countryman, who has come to strange quarters with it. Your Royal Highness -has now the opportunity of thanking this gentleman.” - </p> -<p> -“I' faith,” said he, “I seem to be kept pretty constantly in mind of the -little I owe to this gentleman in spite of himself. Harkee, my good -Monsieur, I got you a post; I thought you had been out of Dunkerque by -now.” - </p> -<p> -“The post waits, M. Albany,” said I, “and I am going to take it up -forthwith. I came here to thank the person to whose kindness I owe the -post, and now I am in a quandary as to whom my thanks should be -addressed.” - </p> -<p> -“My dear Monsieur, to whom but to your countrywoman? We all of us owe her -everything, and—egad!—are not grateful enough,” and with that -he looked for the first time at her with his frown gone. -</p> -<p> -“Yes, yes,” she cried; “we may put off the compliments till another -occasion. What I must say is that it is a grief and a shame to me that -this gentleman, who has done so much for me—I speak for myself, your -Royal Highness will observe—should be so poorly requited.” - </p> -<p> -“Requited!” cried he. “How now? I trust Monsieur is not dissatisfied.” His -face had grown like paste, his hand, that constantly fumbled at his -unshaven chin, was trembling. I felt a mortal pity for this child of -kings, discredited and debauched, and yet I felt bound to express myself -upon the trap that he had laid for me, if Bonnat's words were true. -</p> -<p> -“I have said my thanks, M. Albany, very stammeringly for the d'Auvergne -office, because I can only guess at my benefactor. My gratitude——” - </p> -<p> -“Bah!” cried he. “Tis the scurviest of qualities. A benefactor that does -aught for gratitude had as lief be a selfish scoundrel. We want none of -your gratitude, Monsieur Greig.” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis just as well, M. Albany,” I cried, “for what there was of it is -mortgaged.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Comment?</i>” he asked, uneasily. -</p> -<p> -“I was challenged to a duel this morning with a man Bonnat that calls -himself your servant,” I replied, always very careful to take his own word -for it and assume I spoke to no prince, but simply M. Albany. “He informed -me that you had, Monsieur, some objection to my sharing the same street -with you, and had given him his instructions.” - </p> -<p> -“Bonnat,” cried the Prince, and rubbed his hand across his temples. “I'll -be cursed if I have seen the man for a month. Stay!—stay—let -me think! Now that I remember, he met me last night after dinner, but—but——” - </p> -<p> -“After dinner! Then surely it should have been in a more favourable mood -to myself, that has done M. Albany no harm,” I said. “I do not wonder that -M. Albany has lost so many of his friends if he settles their destinies -after dinner.” - </p> -<p> -At first he frowned at this and then he laughed outright. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ma foi!</i>” he cried, “here's another Greig to call me gomeral to my -face,” and he lounged to a chair where he sunk in inextinguishable -laughter. -</p> -<p> -But if I had brought laughter from him I had precipitated anger elsewhere. -</p> -<p> -“Here's a pretty way to speak to his Royal Highness,” cried Miss -Walkinshaw, her face like thunder. “The manners of the Mearns shine very -poorly here. You forget that you speak to one that is your prince, in -faith your king!” - </p> -<p> -“Neither prince nor king of mine, Miss Walkinshaw,” I cried, and turned to -go. “No, if a hundred thousand swords were at his back. I had once a -notion of a prince that rode along the Gallowgate, but I was then a boy, -and now I am a man—which you yourself have made me.” - </p> -<p> -With that I bowed low and left them. They neither of them said a word. It -was the last I was to see of Clementina Walkinshaw and the last of Charles -Edward. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXIV -</h2> -<h3> -OF MY WINTER CAMPAIGN IN PRUSSIA, AND ANOTHER MEETING WITH MACKELLAR OF -KILBRIDE -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> have no intention here of narrating at large what happened in my short -career as a soldier of the French Army, curious though some of the things -that befell me chanced to be. They may stand for another occasion, while I -hurriedly and briefly chronicle what led to my second meeting with -MacKellar of Kilbride, and through that same to the restoration of the -company of Father Hamilton, the sometime priest of Dixmunde. -</p> -<p> -The Regiment d'Auvergne was far from its native hills when first I joined -it, being indeed on the frontier of Austria. 'Twas a corps not long -embodied, composed of a preposterous number of mere lads as soft as kail, -yet driven to miracles of exertion by drafted veteran officers of other -regiments who stiffened their command with the flat of the sword. As for -my lieutenancy it was nothing to be proud of in such a battalion, for I -herded in a mess of foul-mouthed scoundrels and learned little of the -trade of soldiering that I was supposed to be taught in the interval -between our departure from the frontier and our engagement on the field as -allies with the Austrians. Of the Scots that had been in the regiment at -one time there was only one left—a major named MacKay, that came -somewhere out of the Reay country in the shire of Sutherland, and was -reputed the drunkenest officer among the allies, yet comported himself, on -the strength of his Hielan' extraction, towards myself, his Lowland -countryman, with such a ludicrous haughtiness I could not bear the man—no, -not from the first moment I set eyes on him! -</p> -<p> -He was a pompous little person with legs bowed through years of riding -horse, and naturally he was the first of my new comrades I introduced -myself to when I joined the colours. I mind he sat upon a keg of bullets, -looking like a vision of Bacchus, somewhat soiled and pimply, when I -entered to him and addressed him, with a certain gladness, in our tongue. -</p> -<p> -“Humph!” was what he said. “Another of his Royal Highness's Sassenach -friends! Here's a wheen of the lousiest French privates ever shook in -their breeks in front of a cannon, wanting smeddum and courage drummed -into them with a scabbard, and they send me Sassenachs to do the business -with when the whole hearty North of Scotland is crawling with the stuff I -want particularly.” - </p> -<p> -“Anyway, here I am, major,” said I, slightly taken aback at this, “and -you'll have to make the best of me.” - </p> -<p> -“Pshaw!” cried he vulgarly and cracked his thumb. “I have small stomach -for his Royal Highness's recommendations; I have found in the past that he -sends to Austria—him and his friends—only the stuff he has no -use for nearer the English Channel, where it's I would like to be this -day. They're talking of an invasion, I hear; wouldn't I like to be among -the first to have a slap again at Geordie?” - </p> -<p> -My birse rose at this, which I regarded as a rank treason in any man that -spoke my own language even with a tartan accent. -</p> -<p> -“A slap at Geordie!” I cried. “You made a bonny-like job o't when you had -the chance!” - </p> -<p> -It was my first and last confabulation of a private nature with Major -Dugald MacKay. Thereafter he seldom looked the road I was on beyond to -give an order or pick a fault, and, luckily, though a pleasant footing -with my neighbours has ever been my one desire in life, I was not much put -up or down by the ill-will of such a creature. -</p> -<p> -Like a break in a dream, a space of all unfriended travelling, which is -the worst travelling of all, appears my time of marching with the Regiment -d'Auvergne. I was lost among aliens—aliens in tongue and sentiment, -and engaged, to tell the truth, upon an enterprise that never enlisted the -faintest of my sympathy. All I wished was to forget the past (and that, be -sure, was the one impossible thing), and make a living of some sort. The -latter could not well be more scanty, for my pay was a beggar's, and -infrequent at that, and finally it wholly ceased. -</p> -<p> -I saw the world, so much of it as lies in Prussia, and may be witnessed -from the ranks of a marching regiment of the line; I saw life—the -life of the tent and the bivouac, and the unforgettable thing of it was -death—death in the stricken field among the grinding hoofs of -horses, below the flying wheels of the artillery. -</p> -<p> -And yet if I had had love there—some friend to talk to when the -splendour of things filled me; the consciousness of a kind eye to share -the pleasure of a sunshine or to light at a common memory; or if I had had -hope, the prospect of brighter days and a restitution of my self-respect, -they might have been much happier these marching days that I am now only -too willing to forget. For we trod in many pleasant places even when -weary, by summer fields jocund with flowers, and by autumn's laden -orchards. Stars shone on our wearied columns as we rested in the meadows -or on the verge of woods, half satisfied with a gangrel's supper and -sometimes joining in a song. I used to feel then that here was a better -society after all than some I had of late been habituated with upon the -coast. And there were towns we passed through: 'twas sweet exceedingly to -hear the echo of our own loud drums, the tarantara of trumpets. I liked to -see the folks come out although they scarce were friendly, and feel that -priceless zest that is the guerdon of the corps, the crowd, the mob—that -I was something in a vastly moving thing even if it was no more than the -regiment of raw lads called d'Auvergne. -</p> -<p> -We were, for long in our progress, no part of the main army, some strategy -of which we could not guess the reasoning, making it necessary that we -should move alone through the country; and to the interest of our progress -through these foreign scenes was added the ofttimes apprehension that we -might some day suffer an alarm from the regiments of the great Frederick. -Twice we were surprised by night and our pickets broken in, once a native -guided us to a <i>guet-apens</i>—an ambuscade—where, to do him -justice, the major fought like a lion, and by his spirit released his -corps from the utmost danger. A war is like a harvest; you cannot aye be -leading in, though the common notion is that in a campaign men are -fighting even-on. In the cornfield the work depends upon the weather; in -the field of war (at least with us 'twas so) the actual strife must often -depend upon the enemy, and for weeks on end we saw them neither tail nor -horn, as the saying goes. Sometimes it seemed as if the war had quite -forgotten us, and was waging somewhere else upon the planet far away from -Prussia. -</p> -<p> -We got one good from the marching and the waiting; it put vigour in our -men. Day by day they seemed to swell and strengthen, thin faces grew -well-filled and ruddy, slouching steps grew confident and firm. And thus -the Regiment d'Au-vergne was not so badly figured when we fought the fight -of Rosbach that ended my career of glory. -</p> -<p> -Rosbach!—its name to me can still create a tremor. We fought it in -November month in a storm of driving snow. Our corps lay out upon the -right of Frederick among fields that were new-ploughed for wheat and -broken up by ditches. The d'Auvergnes charged with all the fire of -veterans; they were smashed by horse, but rose and fell and rose again -though death swept across them like breath from a furnace, scorching and -shrivelling all before it. The Prussian and the Austrian guns went -rat-a-pat like some gigantic drum upon the braes, and nearer the musketry -volleys mingled with the plunge of horse and shouting of commanders so -that each sound individually was indistinguishable, but all was blended in -one unceasing melancholy hum. -</p> -<p> -That drumming on the braes and that long melancholy hum are what most -vividly remains to me of Rosbach, for I fell early in the engagement, -struck in the charge by the sabre of a Prussian horseman that cleft me to -the skull in a slanting stroke and left me incapable, but not unconscious, -on the field. -</p> -<p> -I lay for hours with other wounded in the snow The battle changed ground; -the noises came from the distance: we seemed to be forgotten. I pitied -myself exceedingly. Finally I swounded. -</p> -<p> -When I came to myself it was night and men with lanterns were moving about -the fields gathering us in like blackcock where we lay. Two Frenchmen came -up and spoke to me, but what they said was all beyond me for I had clean -forgotten every word of their language though that morning I had known it -scarcely less fully than my own. I tried to speak in French, it seems, and -thought I did so, but in spite of me the words were the broadest lallands -Scots such as I had not used since I had run, a bare-legged boy, about the -braes of, home. And otherwise my faculties were singularly acute, for I -remember how keenly I noticed the pitying eye of the younger of the two -men. -</p> -<p> -What they did was to stanch my wound and go away. I feared I was deserted, -but by-and-by they returned with another man who held the lantern close to -my face as he knelt beside me. -</p> -<p> -“By the black stones of Baillinish!” said he in an unmistakable Hielan' -accent, “and what have I here the night but the boy that harmed the bylie? -You were not in your mother's bosom when you got that stroke!” - </p> -<p> -I saw his smile in the light of his lanthom, 'twas no other than MacKellar -of Kilbride! -</p> -<p> -He was a surgeon in one of the corps; had been busy at his trade in -another part of the field when the two Frenchmen who had recognised me for -a Scot had called him away to look to a compatriot. -</p> -<p> -Under charge of Kilbride (as, in our country fashion, I called him) I was -taken in a waggon with several other wounded soldiers over the frontier -into Holland, that was, perhaps, the one unvexed part of all the Continent -of Europe in these stirring days. -</p> -<p> -I mended rapidly, and cheery enough were these days of travel in a cart, -so cheery that I never considered what the end of them might be, but was -content to sit in the sunshine blithely conversing with this odd surgeon -of the French army who had been roving the world for twenty years like my -own Uncle Andrew, and had seen service in every army in Europe, but yet -hankered to get back to the glens of his nativity, where he hoped his -connection with the affair of Tearlach and the Forty-five would be -forgotten. -</p> -<p> -“It's just this way of it, Hazel Den,” he would say to me, “there's them -that has got enough out of Tearlach to make it worth their while to stick -by him and them that has not. I am of the latter. I have been hanging -about Paris yonder for a twelvemonth on the promise of the body that I -should have a post that suited with my talents, and what does he do but -get me clapped into a scurvy regiment that goes trudging through Silesia -since Whitsunday, with never a sign of the paymaster except the once and -then no more than a tenth of what was due to me. It is, maybe, glory, as -the other man said; but my sorrow, it is not the kind that makes a -clinking in your pouches.” - </p> -<p> -He had a comfortable deal of money to have so poor an account of his -paymaster, and at that I hinted. -</p> -<p> -“Oh! Allow me for that!” he cried with great amusement at my wonder. “Fast -hand at a feast and fast feet at a foray is what the other man said, and -I'm thinking it is a very good observation, too. Where would I be if I was -lippening on the paymaster?” - </p> -<p> -“Man! you surely have not been stealing?” said I, with such great -innocency that he laughed like to end. -</p> -<p> -“Stealing!” he cried. “It's no theft to lift a purse in an enemy's -country.” - </p> -<p> -“But these were no enemies of yours?” I protested, “though you happen to -be doctoring in their midst.” - </p> -<p> -“Tuts! tuts, man!” said he shortly. “When the conies quarrel the quirky -one (and that's Sir Fox if ye like to ken) will get his own. There seems -far too much delicacy about you, my friend, to be a sporran-soldier -fighting for the best terms an army will give you. And what for need you -grumble at my having found a purse in an empty house when it's by virtue -of the same we're at this moment making our way to the sea?” - </p> -<p> -I could make no answer to that, for indeed I had had, like the other three -wounded men in the cart with me, the full benefit of his purse, wherever -he had found it, and but for that we had doubtless been mouldering in a -Prussian prison. -</p> -<p> -It will be observed that MacKellar spoke of our making for the sea, and -here it behoves that I should tell how that project arose. -</p> -<p> -When we had crossed the frontier the first time it was simply because it -seemed the easiest way out of trouble, though it led us away from the -remnants of the army. I had commented upon this the first night we stopped -within the Netherlands, and the surgeon bluntly gave me his mind on the -matter. The truth was, he said, that he was sick of his post and meant to -make this the opportunity of getting quit of it. -</p> -<p> -I went as close as I dared upon a hint that the thing looked woundily like -a desertion. He picked me up quick enough and counselled me to follow his -example, and say farewell to so scurvy a service as that I had embarked -on. His advices might have weighed less with me (though in truth I was -sick enough of the Regiment d'Auvergne and a succession of defeats) if he -had not told me that there was a certain man at Helvoetsluys he knew I -should like to see. -</p> -<p> -“And who might that be?” I asked. -</p> -<p> -“Who but his reverence himself?” said Kilbride, who dearly loved an -effect. “Yon night I met you in the Paris change-house it was planned by -them I was with, one of them being Buhot himself of the police, that the -old man must be driven out of his nest in the Hôtel Dieu, seeing they had -got all the information they wanted from him, and I was one of the parties -who was to carry this into effect. At the time I fancied Buhot was as keen -upon yourself as upon the priest, and I thought I was doing a wonderfully -clever thing to spy your red shoes and give you a warning to quit the -priest, but all the time Buhot was only laughing at me, and saw you and -recognised you himself in the change-house. Well, to make the long tale -short, when we went to the hospital the birds were both of them gone, -which was more than we bargained for, because some sort of trial was due -to the priest though there was no great feeling against him. Where he had -taken wing to we could not guess, but you will not hinder him to come on a -night of nights (as we say) to the lodging I was tenanting at the time in -the Rue Espade, and throw himself upon my mercy. The muckle hash! I'll -allow the insolency of the thing tickled me greatly. The man was a fair -object, too; had not tasted food for two days, and captured my fancy by a -tale I suppose there is no trusting, that he had given you the last few <i>livres</i> -he had in the world.” - </p> -<p> -“That was true enough about the <i>livres</i>,” I said with gratitude. -</p> -<p> -“Was it, faith?” cried Kilbride. “Then I'm glad I did him the little -service that lay in my power, which was to give him enough money to pay -for posting to Helvoetsluys, where he is now, and grateful enough so far -as I could gather from the last letters I had from him, and also mighty -anxious to learn what became of his secretary.” - </p> -<p> -“I would give the last plack in my pocket to see the creature,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Would you indeed?” said Kilbride. “Then here's the road for you, and it -must be a long furlough whatever of it from the brigade of Marshal -Clermont.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXV -</h2> -<h3> -BRINGS ME TO HELVOETSLUYS IN WINTER WEATHER -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">K</span>ilbride and I parted company with the others once we had got within the -lines of Holland; the cateran (as I would sometimes be calling him in a -joke) giving them as much money as might take them leisuredly to the south -they meant to make for, and he and I proceeded on our way across the -country towards the mouth of the River Maas. -</p> -<p> -It was never my lot before nor since to travel with a more cheerful -companion. Not the priest himself had greater humour in his composition, -and what was more it was a jollity I was able the better to understand, -for while much of Hamilton's <i>esprit</i> missed the spark with me -because it had a foreign savour, the pawkiness of Kilbride was just the -marrow of that I had seen in folks at home. And still the man was strange, -for often he had melancholies. Put him in a day of rain and wind and you -would hear him singing like a laverock the daftest songs in Erse; or give -him a tickle task at haggling in the language of signs with a -broad-bottomed bargeman, or the driver of a rattel-van, and the fun would -froth in him like froth on boiling milk. -</p> -<p> -Indeed, and I should say like cream, for this Mac-Kellar man had, what is -common enough among the clans in spite of our miscalling, a heart of jeel -for the tender moment and a heart of iron for the hard. But black, black, -were his vapours when the sun shone, which is surely the poorest of -excuses for dolours. I think he hated the flatness of the land we -travelled in. To me it was none amiss, for though it was winter I could -fancy how rich would be the grass of July in the polders compared with our -poor stunted crops at home, and that has ever a cheerful influence on any -man that has been bred in Lowland fields. But he (if I did not misread his -eye) looked all ungratefully on the stretching leagues that ever opened -before us as we sailed on waterways or jolted on the roads. -</p> -<p> -“I do not ken how it may be with you, Mr. Greig,” he said one day as, -somewhere in Brabant, our sluggish vessel opened up a view of canal that -seemed to stretch so far it pricked the eye of the setting sun, and the -windmills whirled on either hand ridiculous like the games of children—“I -do not ken how it may be with you, but I'm sick of this country. It's no -better nor a bannock, and me so fond of Badenoch!” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed and there's a sameness about every part of it,” I confessed, “and -yet it has its qualities. See the sun on yonder island—'tis pleasant -enough to my notion, and as for the folk, they are not the cut of our own, -but still they have very much in common with folks I've seen in Ayr.” - </p> -<p> -He frowned at that unbelievingly, and cast a sour eye upon some women that -stood upon a bridge. “Troth!” said he, “you would not compare these -limmers with our own. I have not seen a light foot and a right dark eye -since ever I put the back of me to the town of Inverness in the year of -'Fifty-six.'” - </p> -<p> -“Nor I since I left the Mearns,” I cried, suddenly thinking of Isobel and -forgetting all that lay between that lass and me. -</p> -<p> -“Oh! oh!” cried Kilbride. “And that's the way of it? Therms more than -Clemie Walkinshaw, is there? I was ill to convince that a nephew of Andy -Greig's began the game at the age of twenty-odd with a lady that might -have been his mother.” - </p> -<p> -I felt very much ashamed that he should have any knowledge of this part of -my history, and seeing it he took to bantering me. -</p> -<p> -“Come, come!” said he, “you must save my reputation with myself for -penetration, for I aye argued with Buhot that your tanglement with madame -was something short of innocency for all your mim look, and he was for -swearing the lady had found a fool.” - </p> -<p> -“I am beat to understand how my affairs came to be the topic of dispute -with you and Buhot?” said I, astonished. -</p> -<p> -“And what for no'?” said he. “Wasn't the man's business to find out -things, and would you have me with no interest in a ploy when it turned -up? There were but the two ways of it—you were all the gomeral in -love that Buhot thought you, or you were Andy Greig's nephew and willing -to win the woman's favour (for all her antiquity) by keeping Buhot in the -news of Hamilton's movements.” - </p> -<p> -“Good God!” I cried, “that was a horrible alternative!” even then failing -to grasp all that he implied. -</p> -<p> -“Maybe,” he said pawkily; “but you cannot deny you kept them very well -informed upon your master's movements, otherwise it had gone very hard -perhaps with his Royal Highness.” - </p> -<p> -“Me!” I cried. “I would have as soon informed upon my father. And who was -there to inform?” - </p> -<p> -Kilbride looked at me curiously as if he half doubted my innocence. “It is -seldom I have found the man Buhot in a lie of the sort,” said he, “but he -led me to understand that what information he had of the movements of the -priest came from yourself.” - </p> -<p> -I jumped to my feet, and almost choked in denying it. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, very well, very well!” said Kilbride coolly. “There is no need to -make a <i>fracas</i> about the matter. I am just telling you what Buhot -told me. And troth! it was a circumstantial story he had of it; for he -said that the Marshal Duke de Bellisle, and Monsieur Florentin, and -Monsieur Berrier, and all the others of the Cabinet, had Fleuriau's name -and direction from yourself, and found the plot had some connection with -the affair of Damiens. George Kelly, the Prince's secretary, was another -man that told me.” He gazed along the deck of the scow we sat in, as if -thinking hard, and then turned to me with a hesitating suggestion. -“Perhaps,” said he, “you are forgetting. Perhaps you wrote the woman and -told her innocently enough, and that would come to the same thing.” - </p> -<p> -I was overwhelmed with confusion at the idea, though the possibility of my -letters being used had once before occurred to me. -</p> -<p> -“Well, if you must know, it is true I wrote some letters to Miss -Walkinshaw,” I confessed shamefacedly. “But they were very carefully -transmitted by Bernard the Swiss to her, for I got her answers back.” - </p> -<p> -He burst out laughing. -</p> -<p> -“For simplicity you beat all!” cried he. “You sent your news through the -Swiss, that was in Buhot's pay, and took the charge from Hamilton's -pistols, and did his part in helping you to escape from jyle with a great -degree of humour as those of us who knew what was afoot had to agree, and -you think the man would swither about peeping into a letter you entrusted -to him, particularly if it was directed to hersel'! The sleep-bag was -under your head sure enough, as the other man said.” - </p> -<p> -“And I was the unconscious wretch that betrayed our hiding in the Hôtel -Dieu!” I cried with much chagrin, seeing at a flash what all this meant. -“If I had Bernard here I could thraw his neck.” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed,” said he, “and what for should it be Bernard? The man but did -what he was told, and there, by my troth! when I think of it, I'm no' so -sure that he was any different from yourself.” - </p> -<p> -“What do you mean?” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, just that hersel' told you to keep her informed of your movements and -you did so. In Bernard and you she had a pair of spies instead of only the -one had she trusted in either.” - </p> -<p> -“And what in all the world would she be doing that for?” - </p> -<p> -“What but for her lover the prince?” said he with a sickening promptness -that some way left me without a doubt he spoke with knowledge. “Foul fa' -the day he ever clapt eyes on her! for she has the cunning of the fox, -though by all accounts a pleasant person. They say she has a sister that's -in the service of the queen at St. James's, and who kens but for all her -pretended affection for Tearlach she may be playing all the time into the -hands of his enemies? She made you and this Bernard the means of putting -an end to the Jesuit plot upon his Royal Highness by discovering the -source of it, and now the Jesuits, as I'm told, are to be driven furth the -country and putten to the horn.” - </p> -<p> -I was stunned by this revelation of what a tool I had been in the hands of -one I fancied briefly that I was in love with. For long I sat silent -pondering on it, and at last unable to make up my mind whether I should -laugh or swear. Kilbride, while affecting to pay no heed to me, was keen -enough to see my perturbation, and had, I think, a sort of pride that he -had been able to display such an astuteness. -</p> -<p> -“I'm afraid,” said I at last, “there is too much probability in all that -you have said and thought. I am a stupendous ass, Mr. MacKellar, and you -are a very clever man.” - </p> -<p> -“Not at all, not at all!” he protested hurriedly. “I have just some -natural Hielan' interest in affairs of intrigue, and you have not (by your -leave) had my advantages of the world, for I have seen much of the evil as -well as the good of it, and never saw a woman's hand in aught yet but I -wondered what mischief she was planning. There's much, I'm telling you, to -be learned about a place like Fontainebleau or Versailles, and I -advantaged myself so well of my opportunities there that you could not -drive a hole but I would put a nail in it, as the other man said.” - </p> -<p> -“Well,” said I, “my hope is that I may never meet the woman again, and -that's without a single angry feeling to her.” - </p> -<p> -“You need not fear about that,” said he. “The thing that does not lie in -your road will never break your leg, as the other man said, and I'll be -surprised if she puts herself in your way again now that her need for you -is done. A score of your friends in Dunkerque could have told you that she -was daft about him. I might be vexed for you if I did not know from your -own mouth of the other one in Mearns.” - </p> -<p> -“We'll say nothing about that,” I says, “for that's a tale that's by wi'. -She's lost to me.” - </p> -<p> -He gave a little chuckle and had that turn in the eye that showed he had a -curious thought. -</p> -<p> -“What are you laughing at?” I asked. “Oh, just an old word we have in the -Language, that with a two-deer stag-hound it will be happening often that -a stag's amissing.” - </p> -<p> -“There's another thing I would like you to tell me out of your -experience,” I said, “and that is the reason for the Prince's doing me a -good turn with the one hand and a bad one with the other; using his -efforts to get me the lieutenancy and at the same time putting a man on my -track to quarrel with me?” - </p> -<p> -“It's as plain as the nose on your face,” he cried. “It was no great -situation he got you when it was in the Regiment d'Auvergne, as you have -discovered, but it would be got I'll warrant on the pressure of the -Walkinshaw one. Just because she had that interest in you to press him for -the post, and you were in the trim to keep up a correspondence with her -(though in his own interest, as he must know, so far as she was -concerned), he would want you out of the road. Love is like lairdship, -Hazel Den, and it puts up very poorly with fellowship, as the other man -said.” - </p> -<p> -I thought of the occasions when his Royal Highness had seen me at night in -front of a certain window in the Rue de la Boucherie, and concluded that -Kilbride in this too had probably hit the mark. -</p> -<p> -And so we passed through Holland in many changes of weather that finally -turned to a black frost, which covered the canals with ice whereon skated -the Dutch folks very pleasantly, but we were the losers, as the rest of -our journey had to be made by post. -</p> -<p> -It was well on in the winter when we got to Helvoetsluys. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXVI -</h2> -<h3> -FATHER HAMILTON IS THREATENED BY THE JESUITS AND WE ARE FORCED TO FLY -AGAIN -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>he priest, poor man! aged a dozen years by his anxieties since I had seen -him last, was dubious of his senses when I entered where he lodged, and he -wept like a bairn to see my face again. -</p> -<p> -“Scotland! Scotland! beshrew me, child, and I'd liefer have this than ten -good dinners at Verray's!” cried he, and put his arms about my shoulders -and buried his face in my waistcoat to hide his uncontrollable tears. -</p> -<p> -He was quartered upon a pilot of the Schelde and Hollands Deep, whose only -child he made a shift to tutor in part payment of his costs, and the very -moment that we had come in upon him he was full of a matter that had -puzzled him for weeks before we came to Helvoetsluys. 'Twas a thing that -partly hurt his pride, though that may seem incredible, and partly gave -him pleasure, and 'twas merely that when he had at last found his -concealment day and night in the pilot's house unendurable, and ventured a -stroll or two upon the dunes in broad sunshine, no one paid any attention -to him. There were soldiers and sailors that must have some suspicions of -his identity, and he had himself read his own story and description in one -of the gazettes, yet never a hand was raised to capture him. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ma foi!</i> Paul,” he cried to me in a perplexity. “I am the most -marvellous priest unfrocked, invisible to the world as if I had Mambrino's -helmet. Sure it cannot be that I am too stale quarry for their hunting! My -<i>amour propre</i> baulks at such conclusion. I that have—heaven -help me!—loaded pistols against the Lord's anointed, might as well -have gone shooting sparrows for all the infamy it has gained me. But -yesterday I passed an officer of the peace that cried '<i>Bon jour</i>, -father,' in villainous French with a smile so sly I could swear he knew my -history from the first breeching. I avow that my hair stirred under my hat -when he said it.” - </p> -<p> -MacKellar stood by contemptuous of the priest's raptures over his restored -secretary. -</p> -<p> -“Goodness be about us!” he said, “what a pity the brock should be hiding -when there's nobody hunting him! The first squirt of the haggis is always -the hottest, as the other man said. If they were keen on your track at the -start of it—and it's myself has the doubt of that same—you may -warrant they are slack on it now. It's Buhot himself would be greatly put -about if you went to the jail and put out your hands for the manacles.” - </p> -<p> -Father Hamilton looked bewildered. -</p> -<p> -“Expiscate, good Monsieur MacKellar,” said he. -</p> -<p> -“Kilbride just means,” said I, “that you are in the same case as myself, -and that orders have gone out that no one is to trouble you.” - </p> -<p> -He believed it, and still he was less cheerful than I looked for. “Indeed, -'tis like enough,” he sighed. “I have put my fat on a trap for a fortnight -back to catch my captors and never a rat of them will come near me, but -pass with sniffing noses. And yet on my word I have little to rejoice for. -My friends have changed coats with my enemies because they swear I -betrayed poor Fleuriau. I'd sooner die on the rack——” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, Father Hamilton!” I could not help crying, with remorse upon my -countenance. He must have read the story in a single glance at me, for he -stammered and took my hand. -</p> -<p> -“What! there too, Scotland!” he said. “I forswear the company of innocence -after this. No matter, 'tis never again old Dixmunde parish for poor -Father Hamilton that loved his flock well enough and believed the best of -everybody and hated the confessional because it made the world so wicked. -My honey-bees will hum next summer among another's flowers, and my darling -blackbirds will be all starving in this pestilent winter weather. Paul, -Paul, hear an old man's wisdom—be frugal in food, and raiment, and -pleasure, and let thy ambitions flutter, but never fly too high to come -down at a whistle. But here am I, old Pater Dull, prating on foolish -little affairs, and thou and our honest friend here new back from the -sounding of the guns. Art a brave fighter, lad? I heard of thee in the -grenadier company of d'Auvergne.” - </p> -<p> -“We did the best part of our fighting with our shanks, as the other man -said,” cried Kilbride. “But Mr. Greig came by a clout that affected his -mind and made him clean forget the number of his regiment, and that is -what for the lowlands of Holland is a very pleasant country just now.” - </p> -<p> -“Wounded!” cried the priest, disturbed at this intelligence. “Had I known -on't I should have prayed for thy deliverance.” - </p> -<p> -“I have little doubt he did that for himself,” said Kilbride. “When I came -on him after Rosbach he was behind a dyke, that is not a bad alternative -for prayer when the lead is in the air.” - </p> -<p> -We made up our minds to remain for a while at Helvoet, but we had not -determined what our next step should be, when in came the priest one day -with his face like clay and his limbs trembling. -</p> -<p> -“Ah, Paul!” he cried, and fell into a chair; “here's Nemesis, daughter of -Nox, a scurvy Italian, and wears a monkish cowl. I fancied it were too -good to be true that I should be free from further trials.” - </p> -<p> -“Surely Buhot has not taken it into his head to move again,” I cried. -“That would be very hirpling justice after so long an interval. And in any -case they could scarcely hale you out of the Netherlands.” - </p> -<p> -“No, lad, not Buhot,” said he, perspiring with his apprehensions, “but the -Society. There's one Gordoletti, a pretended Lutheran that hails from -Jena, that has been agent between the Society and myself before now, and -when I was out there he followed me upon the street with the eyes of a -viper. I'll swear the fellow has a poignard and means the letting of -blood. I know how 'twill be—a watch set upon this building, -Gordoletti upon the steps some evening; a jostle, a thrust, and a speeding -shade. A right stout shade too! if spirits are in any relation of measure -to the corporeal clay. Oh, lad, what do I say? my sinner's wit must be -evincing in the front of doom itself.” - </p> -<p> -I thought he simply havered, but found there was too real cause for his -distress. That afternoon the monk walked up and down the street without -letting his eyes lose a moment's sight of the entrance to the pilot's -house where Father Hamilton abode. I could watch him all the better -because I shared a room with Kilbride on the same side of the street, and -even to me there was something eerie in the sight of this long thin -stooping figure in its monkish garment, slouching on the stones or hanging -over the parapet of the bridge, his eyes, lambent black and darting, over -his narrow chafts. Perhaps it was but fancy, yet I thought I saw in the -side of his gown the unmistakable bulge of a dagger. He paced the street -for hours or leaned over the parapet affecting an interest in the barges, -and all the time the priest sat fascinated within, counting his sentence -come. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, by my faith and it is not so bad as that,” I protested on returning -to find him in this piteous condition. “Surely there are two swords here -that at the worst of it can be depended on to protect you.” - </p> -<p> -He shook his head dolefully. “It is no use, Paul,” he cried. “The poignard -or the phial—'tis all the same to them or Gordoletti, and hereafter -I dare not touch a drop of wine or indulge in a meagre soup.” - </p> -<p> -“But surely,” I said, “there may be a mistake, and this Gordoletti may -have nothing to do with you.” - </p> -<p> -“The man wears a cowl—a monkish cowl—and that is enough for -me. A Jesuit out of his customary <i>soutane</i> is like the devil in -dancing shoes—be sure his lordship means mischief. Oh! Paul, I would -I were back in Bicêtre and like to die there cleaner than on the banks of -a Dutch canal. I protest I hate to think of dying by a canal.” - </p> -<p> -Still I was incredulous that harm was meant to him, and he proceeded to -tell me the Society of Jesus was upon the brink of dissolution, and -desperate accordingly. The discovery of Fleuriau's plot against the Prince -had determined the authorities upon the demolition and extinction of the -Jesuits throughout the whole of the King's dominion. Their riches and -effects and churches were to be seized to the profit and emolument of the -Crown; the reverend Fathers were to be banished furth of France for ever. -Designs so formidable had to be conducted cautiously, and so far the only -evidence of a scheme against the Society was to be seen in the Court -itself, where the number of priests of the order was being rapidly -diminished. -</p> -<p> -I thought no step of the civil power too harsh against the band of whom -the stalking man in the cowl outside was representative, and indeed the -priest at last half-infected myself with his terrors. We sat well back -from the window looking out upon the street till it was dusk. There was -never a moment when the assassin (as I still must think him) was not -there, his interest solely in the house we sat in. And when it was wholly -dark, and a single lamp of oil swinging on a cord across the thoroughfare -lit the passage of the few pedestrians that went along the street, -Gordoletti was still close beneath it, silent, meditating, and alert. -</p> -<p> -MacKellar came in from his coffee-house. We sat in darkness, except for -the flicker of a fire of peat. He must have thought the spectacle curious. -</p> -<p> -“My goodness!” cried he, “candles must be unco dear in this shire when the -pair of you cannot afford one between you to see each other yawning. I'm -of a family myself that must be burning a dozen at a time and at both ends -to make matters cheery, for it's a gey glum world at the best of it.” - </p> -<p> -He stumbled over to the mantel-shelf where there was customarily a candle; -found and lit it, and held it up to see if there was any visible reason -for our silence. -</p> -<p> -The priest's woebegone countenance set him into a shout of laughter. His -amusement scarcely lessened when he heard of the ominous gentleman in the -cowl. -</p> -<p> -“Let me see!” he said, and speedily devised a plan to test the occasion of -Father Hamilton's terrors. He arranged that he should dress himself in the -priest's garments, and as well as no inconsiderable difference in their -bulk might let him, simulate the priest by lolling into the street. -</p> -<p> -“A brave plan verily,” quo' the priest, “but am I a bowelless rogue to let -another have my own particular poignard? No, no, Messieurs, let me pay for -my own <i>pots cassés</i> and run my own risks in my own <i>soutane</i>.” - </p> -<p> -With that he rose to his feet and was bold enough to offer a trial that -was attended by considerable hazard. -</p> -<p> -It was determined, however, that I should follow close upon the heels of -Kilbride in his disguise, prepared to help him in the case of too serious -a surprise. -</p> -<p> -The night was still. There were few people in the street, which was one of -several that led down to the quays. The sky had but a few wan stars. When -MacKellar stepped forth in the priest's hat and cloak, he walked slowly -towards the harbour, ludicrously imitating the rolling gait of his -reverence, while I stayed for a little in the shelter of the door. -Gordoletti left his post upon the bridge and stealthily followed Kilbride. -I gave him some yards of law and followed Gordoletti. -</p> -<p> -Our footsteps sounded on the stones; 'twas all that broke the evening -stillness except the song of a roysterer who staggered upon the quays. The -moment was fateful in its way and yet it ended farcically, for ere he had -gained the foot of the street Kilbride turned and walked back to meet the -man that stalked him. We closed upon the Italian to find him baffled and -confused. -</p> -<p> -“Take that for your attentions!” cried Kilbride, and buffeted the fellow -on the ear, a blow so secular and telling from a man in a frock that -Gordoletti must have thought himself bewitched, for he gave a howl and -took to his heels. Kilbride attempted to stop him, but the cassock escaped -his hands and his own unwonted costume made a chase hopeless. As for me, I -was content to let matters remain as they were now that Father Hamilton's -suspicions seemed too well founded. -</p> -<p> -It did not surprise me that on learning of our experience the priest -should determine on an immediate departure from Helvoetsluys. But where he -was to go was more than he could readily decide. He proposed and rejected -a score of places—Bordeaux, Flanders, the Hague, Katwyk farther up -the coast, and many others—weighing the advantages of each, -enumerating his acquaintances in each, discovering on further thought that -each and every one of them had some feature unfavourable to his -concealment from the Jesuits. -</p> -<p> -“You would be as long tuning your pipes as another would be playing a -tune,” said Kilbride at last. “There's one thing sure of it, that you -cannot be going anywhere the now without Mr. Greig and myself, and what -ails you at Dunkerque in which we have all of us acquaintances?” - </p> -<p> -A season ago the suggestion would have set my heart in flame; but now it -left me cold. Yet I backed up the proposal, for I reflected that (keeping -away from the Rue de la Boucherie) we might there be among a good many -friends. Nor was his reverence ill to influence in favour of the proposal. -</p> -<p> -The next morning saw us, then, upon a hoy that sailed for Calais and was -bargained to drop us at Dunkerque. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXVII -</h2> -<h3> -I OVERHEAR THE PLAN OF BRITAIN'S INVASION -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> began these chronicles with a homily upon the pregnancy of chance that -gives the simplest of our acts ofttimes far-reaching and appalling -consequences. It is clear that I had never become the Spoiled Horn and -vexed my parents' lives had not a widow woman burned her batch of scones, -and though perhaps the pair of shoes in the chest bequeathed to me by my -Uncle Andrew were without the magic influence he and I gave credit for, it -is probable that I had made a different flight from Scotland had they not -led me in the way of Daniel Risk. -</p> -<p> -And even now their influence was not ended. During the months I had spent -at soldiering the red shoes reposed among my baggage; even when I had -changed from the uniform of the Regiment d'Auvergne upon the frontier of -Holland, and made myself again a common citizen of Europe, I had some -freit (as we say of a superstition) against resuming the shoes that had -led me previously into divers perils. But the day we left Helvoet in the -Hollands Deep hoy, I was so hurried in my departure that the red shoes -were the only ones I could lay hands on. As luck would have it, when I -entered Dunkerque for the last time in my history some days after, I was -wearing the same leather as on the first day of my arrival there, and the -fact led, by a singularity of circumstances, to my final severance from -many of those: companions—some of them pleasant and unforgetable—I -had made acquaintance with in France. -</p> -<p> -It was thus that the thing happened. -</p> -<p> -When we entered Dunkerque, the priest, Kilbride, and I went to an inn upon -the sea front. Having breakfasted I was deputed to go forth and call upon -Thurot, explain our circumstances, take his counsel, and return to the hoy -where my two friends would return to wait for me. He was out when I -reached his lodging, but his Swiss—a different one from what he had -before when I was there—informed me that his master was expected -back at any moment, and invited me to step in and wait for him. I availed -myself of the opportunity. -</p> -<p> -Our voyage along the coast had been delayed by contrary winds, so that now -it was the Sabbath; the town was by-ordinary still (though indeed Sabbath -nor Saturday made much difference, as a rule, on the gaiety of Dunkerque), -and wearied by the sea travel that had just concluded I fell fast asleep -in Captain Thurot's chair. -</p> -<p> -I was wakened by a loud knocking at the outer door, not the first, as it -may be remembered, that called me forth from dreams to new twists of -fortune, and I started to my feet to meet my host. -</p> -<p> -What was my chagrin to hear the Prince's voice in converse with him on the -stair! -</p> -<p> -“Here is a pretty pickle!” I told myself. “M. Albany is the last man on -earth I would choose to meet at this moment,” and without another -reflection I darted into the adjoining room and shut the door. It was -Thurot's bed-chamber, with a window that looked out upon the court where -fowls were cackling. I was no sooner in than I somewhat rued my -precipitation, for the manlier course indubitably had been to bide where I -was. But now there was no retreating, so I sat with what patience I could -command to wait my discovery by the tenant of the place after his royal -visitor was gone. -</p> -<p> -It was the Sabbath day as I have said, and the chimes of St. Eloi were -going briskly upon some papist canticle, but not so loud that I could not -hear, in spite of myself, all that went on in the next room. -</p> -<p> -At first I paid no heed, for the situation was unworthy enough of itself -without any attempt on my part to be an eavesdropper. But by-and-bye, -through the banging of the bells of St. Eloi, I heard M. Albany (still to -give the man his by-name) mention the name Ecosse. -</p> -<p> -Scotland! The name of her went through me like a pang! -</p> -<p> -They spoke in French of course; I think I could have understood them had -it been Chinese. For they discussed some details of the intended invasion -that still hung fire, and from the first of M. Albany's sentences I -learned that the descent was determined upon Scotland. 'Twas that which -angered me and made me listen for the rest with every sense of the spy and -deterred by never a scruple. At first I had fancied Thurot would learn -from his servant I was in the house, and leave me alone till his royal -guest's departure from an intuition that I desired no meeting, but it was -obvious now that no such consideration would have induced him to let me -hear the vast secret they discussed. -</p> -<p> -“Twenty thousand men are between Brest and Vannes,” said M. Albany. “We -shall have them in frigates in a fortnight from to-day, and then, <i>mon -Capitaine</i>, affairs shall move briskly.” - </p> -<p> -“And still,” said Thurot, who had some odd tone of dissatisfaction in his -voice, “I had preferred it had been the South of England. Dumont has given -us every anchorage and sounding on the coast between Beachy Head and -Arundel, and from there we could all the sooner have thrust at the heart -of England. This Scotland—” - </p> -<p> -“Bah! Captain Thurot,” cried his Royal Highness impatiently, “you talk -like a fool. At the heart, indeed! With all habitable England like a fat -about it, rich with forts and troops and no more friendship for us than -for the Mameluke! No, no, Thurot, I cry Scotland; all the chances are -among the rocks, and I am glad it has been so decided on.” - </p> -<p> -“And still, with infinite deference, your Royal Highness, this same West -of Scotland never brought but the most abominable luck to you and yours,” - continued Thurot. “Now, Arundel Bay——” - </p> -<p> -“Oh! to the devil with Arundel Bay!” cried M. Albany; “'tis settled -otherwise, and you must take it as you find it. Conflans and his men shall -land upon the West—<i>mon Dieu!</i> I trust they may escape its -fangs; and measures will be there taken with more precaution and I hope -with more success than in Seventeen Forty-five. Thence they will march to -England, sweeping the whole country before them, and not leaving behind -them a man or boy who can carry a musket. Thus they must raise the army to -fifty or sixty thousand men, strike a terror into England, and carry all -with a high hand. I swear 'tis a fatted hog this England: with fewer than -ten thousand Highlanders I have made her thrill at the very vitals.” - </p> -<p> -Thurot hummed. Plainly there was much in the project that failed to meet -his favour. -</p> -<p> -“And Conflans?” said he. -</p> -<p> -His Royal Highness laughed. -</p> -<p> -“Ha! Captain,” said he, “I know, I know. 'Twould suit you better if a -certain Tony Thurot had command.” - </p> -<p> -“At least,” said Thurot, “I am in my prime, while the Marshal is beyond -his grand climacteric.” - </p> -<p> -“And still, by your leave, with the reputation of being yet the best— -well, let us say among the best—of the sea officers of France. Come, -come, Captain, there must be no half-hearts in this venture; would to -Heaven I were permitted to enjoy a share in it! And on you, my friend, -depends a good half of the emprise and the <i>gloire</i>.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Gloire!</i>” cried Thurot. “With every deference to your Royal -Highness I must consider myself abominably ill-used in this matter. That I -should be sent off to Norway and hound-in wretched Swedes with a personage -like Flaubert! Oh, I protest, 'tis beyond all reason! Is it for that I -have been superseded by a man like Conflans that totters on the edge of -the grave?” - </p> -<p> -“I hope 'tis England's grave,” retorted M. Albany with unfailing good -humour, and I heard the gluck of wine as he helped himself to another -glass. “I repeat <i>gloire</i>, with every apology to the experience of M. -le Corsair. 'Tis your duty to advance with your French and your Swedes -upon the North of England, and make the diversion in these parts that -shall inconvenience the English army front or rear.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, curse your diversions!” cried Thurot. “If I have a talent at all 'tis -for the main attack. And this Conflans——” - </p> -<p> -The remainder of the discussion, so far as I remained to hear it, gave no -enlargement upon the plan thus laid bare. But in any case my whole desire -now was to escape from the house without discovery, for I had news that -made my return to Britain imperative. -</p> -<p> -I opened the window quietly and slipped out. The drop to the court was -less than my own height. Into the street I turned with the sober step of -leisure, yet my feet tingled to run hard and my heart was stormy. The -bells of St. Eloi went on ringing; the streets were growing busy with -holiday-makers and the soldiers who were destined to over-run my country. -I took there and then the most dreadful hatred of them, and scowled so -black that some of the soldiers cried after me with a jeer. -</p> -<p> -The priest and Kilbride I found were not at the inn where I had left them, -having gone back to the vessel, so I hurried down to the quay after them. -The hoy had been moved since morning, and in the throng of other vessels -that were in the harbour at the time I lost well-nigh an hour in seeking -her. Whether that was well for me or ill would be folly now to guess, but -when I had no more than set a foot upon the gunwale of a small boat that -was to take me out to her I was clapped upon the shoulder. -</p> -<p> -I turned, to see Thurot and two officers of marine! -</p> -<p> -“Pardon, M. Greig, a moment,” said Thurot, with not the kindest of tones. -“Surely you would not hurry out of Dunkerque without a <i>congé</i> for -old friends?” - </p> -<p> -I stammered some sentences that were meant to reassure him. He interrupted -me, and—not with any roughness, but with a pressure there was no -mistaking and I was not fool enough to resist—led me from the side -of the quay. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ma foi!</i>” said he, “'Tis the most ridiculous thing! I had nearly -missed you and could never have forgiven myself. My Swiss has just -informed me that you were in the house an hour ago while I was there -myself. I fear we must have bored you, M. Albany and I, with our dull -affairs. At least there was no other excuse for your unceremonious -departure through my back window.” - </p> -<p> -I was never well-equipped to conceal my feelings, and it was plain in my -face that I knew all. -</p> -<p> -He sighed. -</p> -<p> -“Well, lad,” said he, rather sorrowfully, “I'd give a good many <i>louis -d'or</i> that you had come visiting at another hour of the day, and now -there's but one thing left me. My Swiss did not know you, but he has—praise -<i>le bon Dieu!</i>—a pair of eyes in his head, and he remembered -that my visitor wore red shoes. Red shoes and a Scotsman!—the -conjunction was unmistakable, and here we are, M. Greig. There are a score -of men looking all over Dunkerque at this moment for these same shoes.” - </p> -<p> -“Confound the red shoes!” I cried, unable to conceal my vexation that they -should once more have brought me into trouble. -</p> -<p> -“By no means, M. Greig,” said Thurot. “But for them we should never have -identified our visitor, and a somewhat startling tale was over the Channel -a little earlier than we intended. And now all that I may do for old -friendship to yourself and the original wearer of the shoes is to give you -a free trip to England in my own vessel. 'Tis not the <i>Roi Rouge</i> -this time—worse luck!—but a frigate, and we can be happy -enough if you are not a fool.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXVIII -</h2> -<h3> -THUROT'S PRISONER. MY FRIEND THE WATCH -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was plain from the first that my overhearing of the plot must compel -Thurot to the step he took. He was not unkind, but so much depended on the -absolute secrecy of the things he had talked to the Prince, that, even at -the unpleasant cost of trepanning me, he must keep me from carrying my -new-got information elsewhere. For that reason he refused to accede to my -request for a few minutes' conversation with the priest or my -fellow-countrymen. The most ordinary prudence, he insisted, demanded that -he should keep me in a sort of isolation until it was too late to convey a -warning across the Channel. -</p> -<p> -It was for these reasons I was taken that Sabbath afternoon to the frigate -that was destined to be in a humble sense his flagship, and was lying in -the harbour with none of her crew as yet on board. I was given a cabin; -books were furnished to cheer my incarceration, for it was no less. I was -to all intents and purposes a prisoner, though enjoying again some of the -privileges of the <i>salle d'épreuves</i> for the sake of old -acquaintance. -</p> -<p> -All that day I planned escape. Thurot came to the cabin and smoked and -conversed pleasantly, but found me so abstracted that he could scarcely -fail to think I meant a counter-sap. -</p> -<p> -“Be tranquil, my Paul,” he advised; “Clancarty and I will make your life -on ship-board as little irksome as possible, but it is your own cursed -luck that you must make up your mind to a fortnight of it.” - </p> -<p> -But that was considerably longer than I was ready to think of with -equanimity. What I wished for was an immediate freedom and a ship to -England, and while he talked I reviewed a dozen methods of escape. Here -was I with a secret worth a vast deal to the British Government; if I -could do my country that service of putting her into possession of it in -time to prevent catastrophe, might I not, without presumption, expect some -clemency from her laws for the crime I had committed in the hot blood of -ignorant and untutored youth? I saw the most cheerful possibilities rise -out of that accident that had made me an eavesdropper in Thurot's lodging—freedom, -my family perhaps restored to me, my name partly re-established; but the -red shoes that set me on wrong roads to start with still kept me on them. -Thurot was an amiable enough gaoler, but not his best wine nor his -wittiest stories might make me forget by how trivial a chance I had lost -my opportunity. -</p> -<p> -We were joined in the afternoon by Lord Clancarty. -</p> -<p> -“What, lad!” cried his lordship, pomaded and scented beyond words; fresh, -as he told us, from the pursuit of a lady whose wealth was shortly to -patch up his broken fortunes. “What, lad! Here's a pretty matter! Pressed, -egad! A renegade against his will! 'Tis the most cursed luck, Captain -Thurot, and wilt compel the poor young gentleman to cut the throats of his -own countrymen?” - </p> -<p> -“I? Faith, not I!” said Thurot. “I press none but filthy Swedes. M. Greig -has my word for it that twelve hours before we weigh anchor he may take -his leave of us. <i>Je le veux bien</i>.” - </p> -<p> -“Bah! 'Tis an impolite corsair this. As for me I should be inconsolable to -lose M. Greig to such a dull country as this England. Here's an Occasion, -M. le Capitaine, for pledging his health in a bottle, and wishing him well -out of his troubles.” - </p> -<p> -“You do not stand sufficiently on your dignity, Clancarty,” laughed -Thurot. “Here's the enemy—” - </p> -<p> -“Dignity! pooh!” said his lordship. “To stand on that I should need a -year's practice first on the tight-rope. There's that about an Irish -gentleman that makes the posturings and proprieties and pretences of the -fashionable world unnecessary. Sure, race will show in his face and action -if he stood alone in his shirt-sleeves on a village common juggling balls. -I am of the oldest blood that springs in Irish kings. 'Tis that knowledge -keeps my heart up when circumstances make the world look rotten like a -cheese. But the curst thing is one cannot for ever be drinking and dining -off a pedigree, and here I am deserted by M. Tête-de-mouche——” - </p> -<p> -Thurot put up his hand to check one of these disloyalties to the Pretender -that I had long since learned were common with Lord Clancarty. -</p> -<p> -“Bah!” cried his lordship. “I love you, Tony, and all the other boys, but -your Prince is a madman—a sotted madman tied to the petticoat tails -of a trollope. This Walkinshaw—saving your presence, Paul Greig, for -she's your countrywoman and by way of being your friend, I hear—has -ruined Charles and the Cause. We have done what we could to make him send -madame back to the place she came from, but he'll do nothing of the kind. -'She has stuck by me through thick and thin, and lost all for me, and now -I shall stick by her,' says foolish Master Sentiment.” - </p> -<p> -“Bravo!” cried Thurot. “'Tis these things make us love the Prince and have -faith in his ultimate success.” - </p> -<p> -“You were ever the hopeful ass, Tony,” said his lordship coolly. “<i>Il -riest pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre</i>, and you must shut -your ears against a tale that all the world is shouting at the pitch of -its voice. Who knows better than Tony Thurot how his Royal Highness has -declined? Why! 'tis manifest in the fellow's nose; I declare he drinks -like a fish—another vice he brought back from your mountain land, M. -Greig, along with Miss Walkinshaw——” - </p> -<p> -“There is far too much of Miss Walkinshaw about your lordship's remarks,” - I cried in an uncontrollable heat that the lady should be the subject of -implications so unkind. -</p> -<p> -He stared, and then kissed his hand to me with laughter and a bow, “Ha!” - he cried, “here's another young gentleman of sentiment. Stap me if I say a -word against the lady for your sake, Andy Greig's nephew.” And back he -went to his bottle. -</p> -<p> -In this light fashion we spent a day that by rights should have been more -profitably and soberly occupied. The frigate lay well out from the quays -from which Thurot had conveyed me with none of the indignities that might -be expected by a prisoner. There was, as I have said, none of her crew on -board save a watch of two men. Beside her quarter there hung a small -smuggling cutter that had been captured some days previously. As I sat in -the cabin, yawning at the hinder-end over Clancarty's sallies, I could -hear now and then the soft thudding of the smuggler's craft against the -fenders as the sea rocked us lightly, and it put a mad fancy into my head. -</p> -<p> -How good it would be, I thought, to be free on board such a vessel and -speeding before a light wind to Britain! Was it wholly impossible? The -notion so possessed me that I took an occasion to go on deck and see how -things lay. -</p> -<p> -The smuggler's boat had her mast stepped, but no sails in her. Over the -bulwark of the frigate leaned one of the watch idly looking at sea-gulls -that cried like bairns upon the smuggler's thwarts and gunnels. He was a -tarry Dutchman (by his build and colour); I fancy that at the time he -never suspected I was a prisoner, for he saluted me with deference. -</p> -<p> -The harbour was emptier than usual of shipping. Dusk was falling on the -town; some lights were twinkling wanly and bells rang in the cordage of -the quays. I asked the seaman if he knew where the hoy <i>Vrijster</i> of -Helvoetsluys lay. -</p> -<p> -At that his face brightened and he promptly pointed to her yellow hull on -the opposite side of the harbour. -</p> -<p> -“Did my honour know Captain Breuer?” he asked, in crabbed French. -</p> -<p> -My honour was very pleased to confess that he did, though in truth my -acquaintance with the skipper who had taken us round from Helvoetsluys -went scarcely further than sufficed me to recall his name. -</p> -<p> -The best sailor ever canted ship! my Dutchman assured me with enthusiasm. -How often have I heard the self-same sentiment from mariners? for there is -something jovial and kind in the seaman's manner that makes him ever fond -of the free, the brave and competent of his own calling, and ready to cry -their merits round the rolling world. -</p> -<p> -A good seaman certainly!—I agreed heartily, though the man might -have been merely middling for all I knew of him. -</p> -<p> -He would like nothing better than to have an hour with Captain Breuer, -said Mynheer. -</p> -<p> -“And I, too,” said I quickly. “But for Captain Thurot's pressing desire -that I should spend the evening here I should be in Breuer's cabin now. -Next to being with him there I would reckon the privilege of having him -here.” - </p> -<p> -There might be very little difficulty about that if my honour was willing, -said Mynheer. They were old shipmates; had sailed the Zuyder Sea together, -and drunken in a score of ports. Dearly indeed would he love to have some -discourse with Breuer. But to take leave from the frigate and cross to the -hoy—no! Captain Thurot would not care for him to do that. -</p> -<p> -“Why not have Breuer come to the frigate?” I asked, with my heart beating -fast. -</p> -<p> -“Why, indeed?” repeated Mynheer with a laugh. “A hail across the harbour -would not fetch him.” - </p> -<p> -“Then go for him,” said I, my heart beating faster than ever lest he -should have some suspicion of my condition and desires. -</p> -<p> -He reminded me that he had no excuse to leave the frigate, though to take -the small boat at the stern and row over to the hoy would mean but a -minute or two. -</p> -<p> -“Well, as for excuses,” said I, “that's easily arranged, for I can give -you one to carry a note to the care of the captain, and you may take it at -your leisure.” - </p> -<p> -At his leisure! He would take it at once and thankfully while we gentlemen -were drinking below, for there was no pleasure under heaven he could -compare with half an hour of good Jan Breuer's company. -</p> -<p> -Without betraying my eagerness to avail myself of such an unlooked-for -opportunity, I deliberately wrote a note in English intimating that I was -a prisoner on the frigate and in pressing humour to get out of her at the -earliest moment. I addressed it to Kilbride, judging the Highlander more -likely than Father Hamilton to take rational steps for my release if that -were within the bounds of possibility. -</p> -<p> -I assured the seaman that if he lost no time in taking it over I would -engage his absence would never be noticed, and he agreed to indicate to me -by a whistle when he returned. -</p> -<p> -With a cheerful assurance that he would have Jan Breuer on this deck in -less than twenty minutes the seaman loosed the painter of the small boat -and set forth upon his errand, while I returned to the cabin where Thurot -and Clancarty still talked the most contrary and absurd politics over -their wine. The vast and tangled scheme of French intrigue was set before -me; at another time it might have been of the most fascinating interest, -but on this particular occasion I could not subdue my mind to matters so -comparatively trivial, while I kept my hearing strained for the evidence -that the Dutchman had accomplished his mission and got back. -</p> -<p> -The moments passed; the interest flagged; Clancarty began to yawn and -Thurot grew silent. It was manifest that the sooner my Dutchman was back -to his ship the better for my plan. Then it was I showed the brightest -interest in affairs that an hour earlier failed to engage a second of my -attention, and I discovered for the entertainment of my gaoler and his -friend a hitherto unsuspected store of reminiscence about my Uncle Andrew -and a fund of joke and anecdote whereof neither of them probably had -thought me capable. -</p> -<p> -But all was useless. The signal that the Dutchman had returned was not -made when Lord Clancarty rose to his feet and intimated his intention -there and then of going ashore, though his manner suggested that it would -have been easy to induce him to wait longer. We went on deck with him. The -night was banked with clouds though a full moon was due; only a few stars -shone in the spaces of the zenith; our vessel was in darkness except where -a lamp swung at the bow. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu!</i> Tony, what a pitchy night! I'd liefer be safe ashore -than risking my life getting there in your cockle-shell,” said Clancarty. -</p> -<p> -“'Art all right, Lord Clancarty,” said Thurot. “Here's a man will row you -to the quay in two breaths, and you'll be snug in bed before M. Greig and -I have finished our prayers.” Then he cried along the deck for the seaman. -</p> -<p> -I felt that all was lost now the fellow's absence was to be discovered. -</p> -<p> -What was my astonishment to hear an answering call, and see the Dutchman's -figure a blotch upon the blackness of the after-deck. -</p> -<p> -“Bring round the small boat and take Lord Clancarty ashore,” said the -captain, and the seaman hastened to do so. He sprang into the small boat, -released her rope, and brought her round. -</p> -<p> -“<i>A demain</i>, dear Paul,” cried his lordship with a hiccough. “It's -curst unkind of Tony Thurot not to let you ashore on parole or permit me -to wait with you.” - </p> -<p> -The boat dropped off into the darkness of the harbour, her oars thudding -on the thole-pins. -</p> -<p> -“There goes a decent fellow though something of a fool,” said Thurot. -“'Tis his kind have made so many enterprises like our own have an -ineffectual end. And now you must excuse me, M. Greig, if I lock you into -your cabin. There are too few of us on board to let you have the run of -the vessel.” - </p> -<p> -He put a friendly hand upon the shoulder I shrugged with chagrin at this -conclusion to an unfortunate day. -</p> -<p> -“Sorry, M. Greig, sorry,” he said humorously. “<i>Qui commence mal finit -mal</i>, and I wish to heaven you had begun the day by finding Antoine -Thurot at home, in which case we had been in a happier relationship -to-night.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XXXIX -</h2> -<h3> -DISCLOSES THE MANNER OF MY ESCAPE AND HOW WE SET SAIL FOR ALBION -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>hurot turned the key on me with a pleasantry that was in no accordance -with my mood, and himself retired to the round house on deck where his -berth was situated. I sat on a form for a little, surrendered all to -melancholy, then sought to remove it by reading, as sleep in my present -humour was out of the question. My reading, though it lasted for an hour -or two, was scarcely worth the name, for my mind continually wandered from -the page. I wondered if my note to Kilbride had been delivered, and if any -step on his part was to be expected therefrom; the hope that rose with -that reflection died at once upon the certainty that as the Dutch seaman -had not signalled as he had promised he had somehow learned the true -nature of my condition in the frigate. Had he told Thurot? If he had told -Thurot—which was like enough—that I had communicated with any -one outside the vessel there was little doubt that the latter would take -adequate steps to prevent interference by Kilbride or any one else. -</p> -<p> -We are compact of memories, a mere bundle of bygone days, childish -recollections, ancient impressions, and so an older experience came to me, -too, of the night I sat in the filthy cabin of Dan Risk's doomed vessel -hearing the splash of illegitimate oars, anticipating with a mind scarcely -more disturbed than I had just now the step of the officer from the prison -at Blackness and the clutch of the chilly fetters. -</p> -<p> -There was a faint but rising nor'-east wind. It sighed among the shrouds -of the frigate. I could hear it even in the cabin, pensive like the call -of the curfew at a great distance. The waves washed against the timbers in -curious short gluckings and hissings. On the vessel herself not a sound -was to be heard, until of a sudden there came a scratching at my cabin -door! -</p> -<p> -It was incredible! I had heard no footstep on the companion, and I had -ceased to hope for anything from the Dutchman! -</p> -<p> -“Who's there?” I asked softly, and at that the key outside was turned and -I was fronted by Kilbride! -</p> -<p> -He wore the most ridiculous travesty of the Dutchman's tarry breeks and -tarpaulin hat and coarse wide jumper, and in the light of my candle there -was a humorous twinkle on his face as he entered, closed the door softly -after him, and sat down beside me. -</p> -<p> -“My goodness!” he whispered, “you have a face on you as if you were in a -graveyard watching ghosts. It's time you were steeping the withies to go -away as we say in the Language, and you may be telling me all the story of -it elsewhere.” - </p> -<p> -“Where's the Dutchman that took my letter?” I asked. -</p> -<p> -“Where,” said Kilbride, “but in the place that well befits him—at -the lug of an anker of Rotterdam gin taking his honest night's rest. I'm -here guizing in his tarry clothes, and if I were Paul Greig of the Hazel -Den I would be clapping on my hat gey quick and getting out of here -without any more parley.” - </p> -<p> -“You left him in the hoy!” said I astonished. -</p> -<p> -“Faith, there was nothing better for it!” said he coolly. “Breuer gave him -so much of the juniper for old acquaintance that when I left he was so -full of it that he had lost the power of his legs and you might as well -try to keep a string of fish standing.” - </p> -<p> -“And it was you took Clancarty ashore?” - </p> -<p> -“Who else? And I don't think it's a great conceit of myself to believe I -play-acted the Dutch tarry-breeks so very well, though I was in something -of a tremble in case the skipper here would make me out below my guizard's -clothes. You may thank your stars the moon was as late of rising this -night as a man would be that was at a funeral yesterday.” “And where's the -other man who was on this vessel?” I asked, preparing to go. -</p> -<p> -“Come on deck and I'll show you,” said Kilbride, checking a chuckle of -amusement at something. -</p> -<p> -We crept softly on deck into the night now slightly lit by a moon veiled -by watery clouds. The ship seemed all our own and we were free to leave -her when we chose for the small boat hung at her stern. -</p> -<p> -“You were asking for the other one,” said Kilbride. “There he is,” and he -pointed to a huddled figure bound upon the waist. “When I came on board -after landing Clancarty this stupid fellow discovered I was a stranger and -nearly made an outcry; but I hit him on the lug with the loom of an oar. -He'll not be observing very much for a while yet, but I was bound all the -same to put a rope on him to prevent him disturbing Captain Thurot's sleep -too soon.” - </p> -<p> -We spoke in whispers for the night seemed all ear and I was for ever -haunted by the reflection that Thurot was divided from us by little more -than an inch or two of teak-wood. Now and then the moon peeped through a -rift of cloud and lit a golden roadway over the sea, enticing me -irresistibly home. -</p> -<p> -“O God, I wish I was in Scotland!” I said passionately. -</p> -<p> -“Less luck than that will have to be doing us,” said Kilbride, fumbling at -the painter of the boat. “The hoy sets sail for Calais in an hour or two, -and it's plain from your letter we'll be best to be taking her round that -length.” - </p> -<p> -“No, not Calais,” said I. “It's too serious a business with me for that. -I'm wanting England, and wanting it unco fast.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Oh, Dhe!</i>” said my countryman, “here's a fellow with the appetite -of Prince Charlie and as likely to gratify it. What for must it be -England, <i>loachain?</i>” - </p> -<p> -“I can only hint at that,” I answered hastily, “and that in a minute. Are -ye loyal?” - </p> -<p> -“To a fine fellow called MacKellar first and to my king and country -after?” - </p> -<p> -“The Stuarts?” said I. -</p> -<p> -He cracked his thumb. “It's all by with that,” said he quickly and not -without a tone of bitterness. -</p> -<p> -“The breed of them has never been loyal to me, and if I could wipe out of -my life six months of the cursedest folly in Forty-five I would go back to -Scotland with the first chance and throw my bonnet for Geordie ever after -like the greasiest burgess ever sold a wab of cloth or a cargo of Virginia -in Glasgow.” - </p> -<p> -“Then,” I said, “you and me's bound for England this night, for I have -that in my knowledge should buy the safety of the pair of us,” and I -briefly conveyed my secret. -</p> -<p> -He softly whistled with astonishment. -</p> -<p> -“Man! it's a gey taking idea,” he confessed. “But the bit is to get over -the Channel.” - </p> -<p> -“I have thought of that,” said I. “Here's a smuggler wanting no more than -a rag of sail in this wind to make the passage in a couple of days.” - </p> -<p> -“By the Holy Iron it's the very thing!” he interrupted, slapping his leg. -</p> -<p> -It takes a time to tell all this in writing, but in actual fact our whole -conversation together in the cabin and on the deck occupied less than five -minutes. We were both of us too well aware of the value of time to have -had it otherwise and waste moments in useless conversation. -</p> -<p> -“What is to be done is this,” I suggested, casting a rapid glance along -the decks and upwards to the spars. “I will rig up a sail of some sort -here and you will hasten over again in the small-boat to the hoy and give -Father Hamilton the option of coming with us. He may or he may not care to -run the risks involved in the exploit, but at least we owe him the offer.” - </p> -<p> -“But when I'm across at the hoy there, here's you with this dovering body -and Captain Thurot. Another knock might settle the one, but you would -scarcely care to have knocks going in the case of an old friend like Tony -Thurot, who's only doing his duty in keeping you here with such a secret -in your charge.” - </p> -<p> -“I have thought of that, too,” I replied quickly, “and I will hazard -Thurot.” - </p> -<p> -Kilbride lowered himself into the small-boat, pushed off from the side of -the frigate, and in silence half-drifted in the direction of the Dutch -vessel. My plans were as clear in my head as if they had been printed on -paper. First of all I took such provender as I could get from my cabin and -placed it along with a breaker of water and a lamp in the cutter. Then I -climbed the shrouds of the frigate, and cut away a small sail that I -guessed would serve my purpose, letting it fall into the cutter. I made a -shift at sheets and halyards and found that with a little contrivance I -could spread enough canvas to take the cutter in that weather at a fair -speed before the wind that had a blessed disposition towards the coast of -England. I worked so fast it was a miracle, dreading at every rustle of -the stolen sail—at every creak of the cutter on the fenders, that -either the captain or his unconscious seaman would awake. -</p> -<p> -My work was scarcely done when the small-boat came off again from the hoy, -and as she drew cautiously near I saw that MacKellar had with him the -bulky figure of the priest. He climbed ponderously, at my signal, into the -cutter, and MacKellar joined me for a moment on the deck of the frigate. -</p> -<p> -“He goes with us then?” I asked, indicating the priest. -</p> -<p> -“To the Indies if need be,” said Kilbride. “But the truth is that this -accident is a perfect God-send to him, for England's the one place below -the firmament he would choose for a refuge at this moment. Is all ready?” - </p> -<p> -“If my sail-making's to be relied on she's in the best of trim,” I -answered. -</p> -<p> -“And—what do ye call it?—all found?” - </p> -<p> -“A water breaker, a bottle of brandy, a bag of bread—” - </p> -<p> -“Enough for a foray of fifty men!” he said heartily. “Give me meal and -water in the heel of my shoe and I would count it very good vivers for a -fortnight.” - </p> -<p> -He went into the cutter; I released the ropes that bound her to the -frigate and followed him. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Mon Dieu</i> dear lad, 'tis a world of most fantastic happenings,” was -all the poor old priest said, shivering in the cold night air. -</p> -<p> -We had to use the oars of the frigate's small-boat for a stroke or two so -as to get the cutter round before the wind; she drifted quickly from the -large ship's side almost like a living thing with a crave for freedom at -last realised; up speedily ran her sail, unhandsome yet sufficient, the -friendly air filled out the rustling folds and drove her through the night -into the open sea. -</p> -<p> -There is something in a moonlit night at sea that must touch in the most -cloddish heart a spring of fancy. It is friendlier than the dawn that at -its most glorious carries a hint of sorrow, or than the bravest sunset -that reminds us life is a brief day at the best of it, and the one thing -sempiternal yet will be the darkness. We sat in the well of the cutter—three -odd adventurers, myself the most silent because I had the double share of -dubiety about the enterprise, for who could tell how soon the doomster's -hand would be on me once my feet were again on British soil? Yet now when -I think of it—of the moonlit sea, the swelling sail above us, the -wake behind that shone with fire—I must count it one of the happiest -experiences of my life. -</p> -<p> -The priest looked back at the low land of France receding behind us, with -its scattered lights on the harbour and the shore, mere subjects to the -queenly moon. “There goes poor Father Hamilton,” said he whimsically, -“happy schoolboy, foolish lover in Louvain that had never but moonlit -eves, parish priest of Dixmunde working two gardens, human and divine, -understanding best the human where his bees roved, but loving all men good -and ill. There goes the spoiled page, the botched effort, and here's a fat -old man at the start of a new life, and never to see his darling France -again. Ah! the good mother; <i>Dieu te bénisse!</i>” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XL -</h2> -<h3> -MY INTERVIEW WITH PITT -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>f our voyage across the Channel there need be no more said than that it -was dull to the very verge of monotony, for the wind, though favourable, -was often in a faint where our poor sail shook idly at the mast. Two days -later we were in London, and stopped at the Queen's Head above Craig's -Court in Charing Cross. -</p> -<p> -And now I had to make the speediest possible arrangement for a meeting -with those who could make the most immediate and profitable use of the -tidings I was in a position to lay before them, by no means an easy matter -to decide upon for a person who had as little knowledge of London as he -had of the Cities of the Plain. -</p> -<p> -MacKellar—ever the impetuous Gael—was for nothing less than a -personal approach to his Majesty. -</p> -<p> -“The man that is on the top of the hill will always be seeing furthest,” - he said. “I have come in contact with the best in Europe on that under -standing, but it calls for a kind of Hielan' tact that—that—” - </p> -<p> -“That you cannot credit to a poor Lowlander like myself,” said I, amused -at his vanity. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, I'm meaning no offence, just no offence at all,” he responded -quickly, and flushing at his <i>faux pas</i>. “You have as much talent of -the kind as the best of us I'm not denying, and I have just the one -advantage, that I was brought up in a language that has delicacies of -address beyond the expression of the English, or the French that is, in -some measure, like it.” - </p> -<p> -“Well,” said I, “the spirit of it is obviously not to be translated into -English, judging from the way you go on crying up your countrymen at the -expense of my own.” - </p> -<p> -“That is true enough,” he conceded, “and a very just observe; but no -matter, what I would be at is that your news is worth too much to be -wasted on any poor lackey hanging about his Majesty's back door, who might -either sell it or you on his own behoof, or otherwise make a mull of the -matter with the very best intentions. If you would take my way of it, -there would be but Geordie himself for you.” - </p> -<p> -“What have you to say to that?” I asked the priest, whose knowledge of the -world struck me as in most respects more trustworthy than that of this -impetuous Highland chirurgeon. -</p> -<p> -“A plague of your kings! say I; sure I know nothing about them, for my -luck has rubbed me against the gabardine and none of your ermined cloaks. -There must be others who know his Majesty's affairs better than his -Majesty himself, otherwise what advantage were there in being a king?” - </p> -<p> -In fine his decision was for one of the Ministers, and at last the -Secretary of State was decided on. -</p> -<p> -How I came to meet with Mr. Pitt need not here be recorded; 'twas indeed -more a matter of good luck than of good guidance, and had there been no -Scots House of Argyll perhaps I had never got rid of my weighty secret -after all. I had expected to meet a person magnificent in robes of state; -instead of which 'twas a man in a blue coat with yellow metal buttons, -full round bob wig, a large hat, and no sword-bag nor ruffles that met me—more -like a country coachman or a waggoner than a personage of importance. -</p> -<p> -He scanned over again the letter that had introduced me and received me -cordially enough. In a few words I indicated that I was newly come from -France, whence I had escaped in a smuggler's boat, and that I had news of -the first importance which I counted it my duty to my country to convey to -him with all possible expedition. -</p> -<p> -At that his face changed and he showed singularly little eagerness to hear -any more. -</p> -<p> -“There will be—there will be the—the usual bargain, I presume, -Mr. Greig?” he said, half-smiling. “What are the conditions on which I am -to have this vastly important intelligence?” - </p> -<p> -“I never dreamt of making any, sir,” I answered, promptly, with some -natural chagrin, and yet mixed with a little confusion that I should in -truth be expecting something in the long run for my story. -</p> -<p> -“Pardon my stupid pleasantry, Mr. Greig,” he said, reddening slightly. “I -have been so long one of his Majesty's Ministers, and of late have seen so -many urgent couriers from France with prime news to be bargained for, that -I have grown something of a cynic. You are the first that has come with a -secret not for sale. Believe me, your story will have all the more -attention because it is offered disinterestedly.” - </p> -<p> -In twenty minutes I had put him into possession of all I knew of the plans -for invasion. He walked up and down the room, with his hands behind his -back, intently listening, now and then uttering an exclamation incredulous -or astonished. -</p> -<p> -“You are sure of all this?” he asked at last sharply, looking in my face -with embarrassing scrutiny. -</p> -<p> -“As sure as any mortal man may be with the gift of all his senses,” I -replied firmly. “At this moment Thurot's vessel is, I doubt not, taking in -her stores; the embarkation of troops is being practised daily, troops are -assembled all along the coast from Brest to Vannes, and—” - </p> -<p> -“Oh! on these points we are, naturally, not wholly dark,” said the -Minister. “We have known for a year of this somewhat theatrical display on -the part of the French, but the lines of the threatened invasion are not -such as your remarkable narrative suggests. You have been good enough to -honour me with your confidence, Mr. Greig; let me reciprocate by telling -you that we have our—our good friends in France, and that for six -months back I have been in possession of the Chevalier D'Arcy's -instructions to Dumont to reconnoitre the English coast, and of Dumont's -report, with the chart of the harbours and towns where he proposed that -the descent should be made.” He smiled somewhat grimly. “The gentleman who -gave us the information,” he went on, “stipulated for twenty thousand -pounds and a pension of two thousand a year as the just reward for his -loving service to his country in her hour of peril. He was not to get his -twenty thousand, I need scarcely say, but he was to get something in the -event of his intelligence proving to be accurate, and if it were for no -more than to get the better of such a dubious patriot I should wish his -tale wholly disproved, though we have hitherto acted on the assumption -that it might be trustworthy. There cannot be alternative plans of -invasion; our informant—another Scotsman, I may say—is either -lying or has merely the plan of a feint.” - </p> -<p> -“You are most kind, sir,” said I. -</p> -<p> -“Oh,” he said, “I take your story first, and as probably the most correct, -simply because it comes from one that loves his country and makes no -bagman's bargains for the sale of secrets vital to her existence.” - </p> -<p> -“I am much honoured, sir,” said I, with a bow. -</p> -<p> -And then he stopped his walk abruptly and faced me again. -</p> -<p> -“You have told me, Mr. Greig,” he went on, “that Conflans is to descend in -a week or two on the coast of Scotland, and that Thurot is to create a -diversion elsewhere with the aid of the Swedes, I have, from the most -delicate considerations, refrained from asking you how you know all this?” - </p> -<p> -“I heard it from the lips of Thurot himself.” - </p> -<p> -“Thurot! impossible!” he murmured. -</p> -<p> -“Of Thurot himself, sir.” - </p> -<p> -“You must be much in that pirate's confidence,” said Mr. Pitt, for the -first time with suspicion. -</p> -<p> -“Not to that extent that he would tell me of his plans for invading my -country,” I answered, “and I learned these things by the merest accident. -I overheard him speak last Sunday in Dunkerque with the Young Pretender—” - </p> -<p> -“The Pretender!” cried the Minister, shrugging his shoulders, and looking -at me with more suspicion than ever. “You apparently move in the most -select and interesting society, Mr. Greig?” - </p> -<p> -“In this case, sir, it was none of my choosing,” I replied, and went on -briefly to explain how I had got into Thurot's chamber unknown to him, and -unwittingly overhead the Prince and him discuss the plan. -</p> -<p> -“Very good, very good, and still—you will pardon me—I cannot -see how so devout a patriot as Mr. Greig should be in the intimacy of men -like Thurot?” - </p> -<p> -“A most natural remark under the circumstances,” I replied. “Thurot saved -my life from a sinking British vessel, and it is no more than his due to -say he proved a very good friend to me many a time since. But I was to -know nothing of his plans of invasion, for he knew very well I had no -sympathy with them nor with Charles Edward, and, as I have told you, he -made me his prisoner on his ship so that I might not betray what I had -overheard.” - </p> -<p> -The Minister made hurried notes of what I had told him, and concluded the -interview by asking where I could be communicated with during the next few -days. -</p> -<p> -I gave him my direction at the Queen's Head, but added that I had it in my -mind to go shortly to Edinburgh, where my address would be best known to -the Lord Advocate. -</p> -<p> -“The Lord Advocate!” said Mr. Pitt, raising his eyebrows. -</p> -<p> -“I may as well make a clean breast of it, sir,” I proceeded hurriedly, -“and say that I left Scotland under circumstances peculiarly distressing. -Thurot saved me from a ship called the <i>Seven Sisters</i>, that had been -scuttled and abandoned with only myself and a seaman on board of her in -mid-channel, by a man named Daniel Risk.” - </p> -<p> -“Bless me!” cried Mr. Pitt, “the scoundrel Risk was tried in Edinburgh a -month or two ago on several charges, including the one you mention, and he -has either been hanged, or is waiting to be hanged at this moment, in the -jail at Edinburgh.” - </p> -<p> -“I was nominally purser on the <i>Seven Sisters</i>, but in actual fact I -was fleeing from justice.” - </p> -<p> -The Minister hemmed, and fumbled with his papers. -</p> -<p> -“It was owing to a duelling affair, in which I had the misfortune to—to—kill -my opponent. I desire, sir, above all, to be thoroughly honest, and I am -bound to tell you it was my first intention to make the conveyance of this -plan of Thurot's a lever to secure my pardon for the crime of manslaughter -which lies at my charge. I would wish now that my loyalty to my country -was really disinterested, and I have, in the last half-hour, made up my -mind to surrender myself to the law of Scotland.” - </p> -<p> -“That is for yourself to decide on,” said the Minister more gravely, “but -I should advise the postponement of your departure to Edinburgh until you -hear further from me. I shall expect to find you at the inn at Charing -Cross during the next week; thereafter——” - </p> -<p> -He paused for a moment. “Well—thereafter we shall see,” he added. -</p> -<p> -After a few more words of the kindest nature the Minister shook hands with -the confessed manslayer (it flashed on me as a curious circumstance), and -I went back to join the priest and my fellow countryman. -</p> -<p> -They were waiting full of impatience. -</p> -<p> -“Hast the King's pardon in thy pocket, friend Scotland?” cried Father -Hamilton; then his face sank in sympathy with the sobriety of my own that -was due to my determination on a surrender to justice once my business -with the Government was over. -</p> -<p> -“I have no more in my pocket than I went out with in the morning,” said I. -“But my object, so far, has been served. Mr. Pitt knows my story and is -like to take such steps as maybe needful. As for my own affair I have -mentioned it, but it has gone no further than that.” - </p> -<p> -“You're not telling me you did not make a bargain of it before saying a -word about the bit plan?” cried MacKellar in surprise, and could scarcely -find words strong enough to condemn me for what he described as my -stupidity. -</p> -<p> -“Many a man will sow the seed that will never eat the syboe,” was his -comment; “and was I not right yonder when I said yon about the tact? If it -had been me now I would have gone very canny to the King himself and said: -'Your Majesty, I'm a man that has made a slip in a little affair as -between gentlemen, and had to put off abroad until the thing blew by. I -can save the lives of many thousand Englishmen, and perhaps the country -itself, by intelligence that came to my knowledge when I was abroad; if I -prove it, will your Majesty pardon the thing that lies at my charge?'” - </p> -<p> -“And would have his Majesty's signature to the promise as 'twere a deed of -sale!” laughed the priest convulsively. “La! la! la! Paul, here's our -Celtic Solon with tact—the tact of the foot-pad. Stand and deliver! -My pardon, sire, or your life! <i>Mon Dieu!</i> there runs much of the old -original cateran in thy methods of diplomacy, good Master MacKellar. Too -much for royal courts, I reckon.” MacKellar pshawed impatiently. “I'm -asking you what is the Secretary's name, Mr. Greig?” said he. “Fox or Pitt -it is all the same—the one is sly and the other is deep, and it is -the natures of their names. I'll warrant Mr. Pitt has forgotten already -the name of the man who gave him the secret, and the wisest thing Paul -Greig could do now would be to go into hiding as fast as he can.” - </p> -<p> -But I expressed my determination to wait in the Queen's Head a week -longer, as I had promised, and thereafter (if nothing happened to prevent -it) to submit myself at Edinburgh. Though I tried to make as little of -that as possible to myself, and indeed would make myself believe I was -going to act with a rare bravery, I must confess now that my determination -was strengthened greatly by the reflection that my service to the country -would perhaps annul or greatly modify my sentence. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XLI -</h2> -<h3> -TREATS OF FATHER HAMILTON'S DEATH -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>t was a gay place, London, in the days I write of, however it may be now, -though Father Hamilton was prone occasionally to compare it unfavourably -with the Paris of his fancy, the which he held a sample-piece of paradise. -The fogs and rains depressed him; he had an eye altogether unfriendly for -the signs of striving commerce in the streets and the greedy haste of -clerks and merchants into whose days of unremitting industry so few joys -(as he fancied) seemed to enter. -</p> -<p> -MacKellar soon found company in it among silken bucks that held noisy -sederunts in the evenings at a place called White's and another called (if -my memory does not fail me) the Cocoa Nut Tree. 'Twas marvellous the -number of old friends and fellow countrymen that, by his own account, he -found there. And what open hands they had! But for him that was -privileged, for old acquaintance sake, to borrow from them, we had found -our week or two in London singularly hungry because (to tell the truth of -it) our money was come very nearly to an end. But MacKellar, who had -foraged so well in Silesia, was equally good at it in the city of London. -From these night escapades he seldom failed to return richer than he went, -and it was he who paid the piper with so much of an air of thinking it a -privilege, that we had not the heart, even if we had the inclination, to -protest. -</p> -<p> -If I had known then, as I know now, or at least suspect, that the money -that fed and boarded us was won through his skill at dice and cards, I -daresay I had shifted sooner from London than I did at the last. -</p> -<p> -Day after day passed, and no word from Mr. Pitt. I dared scarcely leave my -inn for an hour's airing lest I should be asked for in my absence. There -was, for a while, a hope that though I had refused to make any bargain -about the pardon, something—I could not so much as guess what—might -happen to avert the scandal of a trial at Edinburgh, and the disgrace that -same might bring upon my family. But day after day passed, as I have said, -and there came no hint of how matters stood. -</p> -<p> -And then there came a day when I was to consider it mattered very little -whether I heard from Pitt or not; when even my country was forgotten and I -was to suffer a loss whose bitterness abides with me yet. It was the death -of Father Hamilton, whom I had grown to like exceedingly. Birds have built -and sung for many generations since then; children play in the garden -still; there is essence at the table, there is sparkle in the wine, and he -will never enjoy them any more. Fortune has come to me since then, so that -I might have the wherewithal, if I had the wish, to take the road again -with him in honesty, and see it even better than when Sin paid the bill -for us, but it cannot be with him. -</p> -<p> -It was a December day of the whitest, the city smothered in snow, its -tumult hushed. I had been tempted to wander in the forenoon a good way -from our lodging. Coming home in the afternoon I met Kilbride, distracted, -setting out to seek for me. He had a face like the clay, and his hands, -that grasped my lapels as if I meant to fly from him, were trembling. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, Paul,” said he. “Here's the worst of all,” and I declare his cheeks -were wet with tears. -</p> -<p> -“What is it?” I cried in great alarm. -</p> -<p> -“The priest, the priest,” said he. “He's lying yonder at the ebb, and I'm -no more use to him than if I were a bairn. I've seen the death-thraws a -thousand times, but never to vex me just like this before. He could make -two or three of us in bulk, and yet his heart was like a wean's, and there -he's crying on you even-on till I was near demented and must run about the -streets to seek for you.” - </p> -<p> -“But still you give me no clue!” I cried, hurrying home with him. -</p> -<p> -He gave me the story by the way. It seemed his reverence had had a notion -to see Eastcheap, round which the writer Shakespeare had thrown a glamour -for him. He had gone there shortly after I had gone out in the forenoon, -and after a space of walking about it had found himself in a mean street -where a blackguard was beating a child. 'Twas the man's own child, -doubtless, and so he had, I make no doubt, the law of it on his own side, -but the drunken wretch outdid all reasonable chastisement, and thrashed -her till the blood flowed. -</p> -<p> -Up ran the priest and took her in his arms, shielding her from the blows -of the father's cudgel with his arm. The child nuzzled to his breast, -shrieking, and the father tried to pull her away. Between them she fell; -the priest stood over her, keeping back the beast that threatened. The man -struck at him with his stick; Father Hamilton wrenched it from him, threw -it down that he might have no unfair advantage, and flung himself upon the -wretch. He could have crushed him into jelly, but the man was armed, and -suddenly drew a knife. He thrust suddenly between the priest's shoulders, -released himself from the tottering body, and disappeared with his child -apparently beyond all chance of identification or discovery. -</p> -<p> -Father Hamilton was carried home upon a litter. -</p> -<p> -“O God! Kilbride, and must he die?” I cried in horror. -</p> -<p> -“He will travel in less than an hour,” said the Highlander, vastly moved. -“And since he came here his whole cry has been for you and Father Joyce.” - </p> -<p> -We went into the room that seemed unnaturally white and sunny. He lay upon -the bed-clothes. The bed was drawn towards the window, through which the -domes and towers and roofs of London could be seen, with their accustomed -greyness gone below the curtain of the snow. A blotch of blood was on his -shirt-front as he lay upon his side. I thought at first it was his own -life oozing, but learned a little later that the stricken child had had -her face there. -</p> -<p> -“Paul! Paul!” he said, “I thought thou wouldst blame me for deserting thee -again, and this time without so much as a letter of farewell.” - </p> -<p> -What could I do but take his hand, and fall upon my knees beside his bed? -He had blue eyes that never aged nor grossened—the eyes of a boy, -clear, clean, and brave, and round about them wrinkles played in a sad, -sweet smile. -</p> -<p> -“What, Paul!” he said, “all this for behemoth! for the old man of the sea -that has stuck on thy shoulders for a twelvemonth, and spurred thee to -infinite follies and perils! I am no more worth a tear of thine than is -the ivied ash that falls untimely and decayed, eaten out of essence by the -sins he sheltered. And the poor child, Paul!—the poor child with her -arms round my neck, her tears brine—sure I have them on my lips—the -true <i>viaticum!</i> The brute! the brute! Ah no! ah no! poor sinner, we -do not know.” - </p> -<p> -“Oh, father!” I cried, “and must we never go into the woods and towns any -more?” - </p> -<p> -He smiled again and stroked my hair. -</p> -<p> -“Not in these fields, boy,” said he, “but perhaps in more spacious, less -perplexed. Be good, be simple, be kind! Tis all I know.” - </p> -<p> -We heard the steps of Father Joyce upon the stairs. -</p> -<p> -“All I know!” repeated the priest. “Fifty years to learn it, and I might -have found it in my mother's lap. <i>Chère ange</i>—the little -mother—'twas a good world! And Fanchon that is dead below the snow -in Louvain—oh, the sweet world! And the sunny gardens of bees and -children—” - </p> -<p> -His eyes were dull. A pallor was on his countenance. He breathed with -difficulty. Kilbride, who stood by, silent, put a finger on his pulse. At -that he opened his eyes again, once more smiling, and Father Joyce was at -the door. -</p> -<p> -“Kiss me, Paul,” said the dying man, “I hear them singing prime.” - </p> -<p> -When Father Joyce was gone I came into the room again where the priest lay -smiling still, great in figure, in the simplicity and sweetness of his -countenance like a child. -</p> -<p> -Kilbride and I stood silent for a little by the bed, and the Highlander -was the first to speak. “I have seen worse,” said he, “than Father -Hamilton.” - </p> -<p> -It may seem a grudging testimony, but not to me that heard it. -</p> -<p> -On the day after the priest's funeral Kilbride came to me with that news -which sent me north. He had the week's gazette in his hand, “Have you -heard the latest?” he cried. “It is just what I expected,” he went on. -“They have made use of your information and set you aside. Here's the -tidings of Conflans' defeat. Hawke came down on him off Brest, drove him -back from the point of Quiberon to the coast near the mouth of the -Vilaine, sank four ships, captured two, and routed the enemy. The invasion -is at an end.” - </p> -<p> -“It is gallant news!” I cried, warm with satisfaction. -</p> -<p> -“Maybe,” said he indifferently, “but the main thing is that Paul Greig, -who put the Government in the way of taking proper steps, is here in cheap -lodgings with a charge on his head and no better than ever he was. Indeed, -perhaps he's worse off than ever he was.” - </p> -<p> -“How is that?” - </p> -<p> -“Well, they ken where you are, for one thing, and you put yourself in -their power. I am one that has small faith in Governments. What will -hinder them to clap you in jail and save another reward like the first one -Pitt told you about? I would never put it past a Sassenach of the name.” - </p> -<p> -Then I told him it had been in my mind ever since I had seen the Minister -to go to Edinburgh and give myself up to the authorities. -</p> -<p> -“Are ye daft?” he cried, astonished. -</p> -<p> -I could only shrug my shoulders at that. -</p> -<p> -“Perhaps you fancy this business of the invasion will help you to get your -neck out of the loop? I would not lippen on a Government for ten minutes. -You have saved the country—that's the long and the short of it; now -you must just be saving your own hide. There's nothing for us but the -Continent again, and whether you're in the key for that or not, here's a -fellow will sleep uneasy till he has Europe under his head.” - </p> -<p> -Even at the cost of parting with Kilbride I determined to carry out my -intention of going to Edinburgh. With the priest gone, no prospect of Mr. -Pitt taking the first step, and Kilbride in the humour for a retreat, I -decided that the sooner I brought matters to a head the better. -</p> -<p> -There was a mail coach that went north weekly. It took a considerable deal -of money and a fortnight of time to make the journey between the two -capitals, but MacKellar, free-handed to the last, lent me the money (which -I sent him six months later to Holland), and I set out one Saturday from -the “Bull and Whistle” in a genteel two-end spring machine that made a -brisk passage—the weather considered—as far as York on our way -into Scotland. -</p> -<p> -I left on a night of jubilation for the close of the war and the overthrow -of Conflans. Bonfires blazed on the river-side and the eminences round the -city; candles were in every window, the people were huzzaing in the -streets where I left behind me only the one kent face—that of -MacKellar of Kilbride who came to the coach to see the last of me. And -everywhere was the snow—deep, silent, apparently enduring. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XLII -</h2> -<h3> -I DEPART IN THE MIDST OF ILLUMINATION AND COME TO A JAIL, BAD NEWS, AND AN -OLD ENEMY -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">W</span>e carried this elation all through England with us. Whatever town we -stopped at flags were flying, and the oldest resident must be tipsy on the -green for the glory of the British Isles. The seven passengers who -occupied the coach with me found in these rejoicings, and in the great -event which gave rise to them, subjects of unending discourse as we -dragged through the country in the wake of steaming horses. There was with -us a maker of perukes that had found trade dull in Town (as they call it), -and planned to start business in York; a widow woman who had buried her -second husband and was returning to her parents in Northumberland with a -sprightliness that told she was ready to try a third if he offered; and a -squire (as they call a laird) of Morpeth. -</p> -<p> -But for the common interest in the rejoicings it might have been a week -before the company thawed to each other enough to start a conversation. -The first mile of the journey, however, found us in the briskest clebate -on Hawke and his doings. I say us, but in truth my own share in the -conversation was very small as I had more serious reflections. -</p> -<p> -The perruquier, as was natural to his trade, knew everything and itched to -prove it. -</p> -<p> -“I have it on the very best authority,” he would say, “indeed”—with -a whisper for all the passengers as if he feared the toiling horses -outside might hear him—“indeed between ourselves I do not mind -telling that it was from Sir Patrick Dall's man—that the French -would have been on top of us had not one of themselves sold the plot for a -hatful of guineas.” - </p> -<p> -“That is not what I heard at all,” broke in the squire. “I fancy you are -mistaken, sir. The truth, as I have every reason to believe, is that one -of the spies of the Government—a Scotsman, by all accounts—discovered -Conflans' plans, and came over to London with them. A good business too, -egad! otherwise we'd soon have nothing to eat at Morpeth George Inn on -market days but frogs, and would find the parley-voos overrunning the -country by next Lent with their masses and mistresses, and so on. A good -business for merry old England that this spy had his English ears open.” - </p> -<p> -“It may be you are right, sir,” conceded the perruquier deferentially. -“Now that I remember, Sir Patrick's gentleman said something of the same -kind, and that it was one of them Scotsmen brought the news. Like enough -the fellow found it worth his while. It will be a pretty penny in his -pocket, I'll wager. He'll be able to give up spying and start an inn.” - </p> -<p> -I have little doubt the ideal nature of retirement to an inn came to the -mind of the peruke maker from the fact that at the moment we were drawing -up before “The Crown” at Bawtry. Reek rose in clouds from the horses, as -could be seen from the light of the doors that showed the narrow street -knee-deep in snow; a pleasant smell of cooking supper and warm cordials -came out to us, welcome enough it may be guessed after our long day's -stage. The widow clung just a trifle too long on my arm as I gallantly -helped her out of the coach; perhaps she thought my silence and my -abstracted gaze at her for the last hour or two betrayed a tender -interest, but I was thinking how close the squire and the wig-maker had -come upon the truth, and yet made one mistake in that part of their tale -that most closely affected their silent fellow passenger. -</p> -<p> -The sea-fight and the war lasted us for a topic all through England, but -when we had got into Scotland on the seventh day after my departure from -London, the hostlers at the various change-houses yoked fresh horses to -the tune of “Daniel Risk.” - </p> -<p> -We travelled in the most tempestuous weather. Snow fell incessantly, and -was cast in drifts along the road; sometimes it looked as if we were bound -for days, but we carried the mails, and with gigantic toil the driver -pushed us through. -</p> -<p> -The nearer we got to Edinburgh the more we learned of the notorious Daniel -Risk, whom no one knew better than myself. The charge of losing his ship -wilfully was, it appeared, among the oldest and least heinous of his -crimes. Smuggling had engaged his talent since then, and he had murdered a -cabin-boy under the most revolting circumstances. He had almost escaped -the charge of scuttling the <i>Seven Sisters</i>, for it was not till he -had been in the dock for the murder that evidence of that transaction came -from the seaman Horn, who had been wrecked twice, it appeared, and far in -other parts of the world between the time he was abandoned in the scuttled -ship and returned to his native land, to tell how the ruffian had left two -innocent men to perish. -</p> -<p> -Even in these days of wild happenings the fame of Risk exceeded that of -every malefactor that season, and when we got to Edinburgh the street -singers were chanting doleful ballads about him. -</p> -<p> -I would have given the wretch no thought, or very little, for my own -affairs were heavy enough, had not the very day I landed in Edinburgh seen -a broad-sheet published with “The Last Words and Warning” of Risk. The -last words were in an extraordinarily devout spirit; the homily breathed -what seemed a real repentance for a very black life. It would have moved -me less if I could have learned then, as I did later, that the whole thing -was the invention of some drunken lawyer's clerk in the Canongate, who had -probably devised scores of such fictions for the entertainment of the -world that likes to read of scaffold repentances and of wicked lives. The -condition of the wretch touched me, and I made up my mind to see the -condemned man who, by the accounts of the journals, was being visited -daily by folks interested in his forlorn case. -</p> -<p> -With some manoeuvring I got outside the bars of his cell. -</p> -<p> -There was little change in him. The same wild aspect was there though he -pretended a humility. The skellie eye still roved with little of the love -of God or man in it; his iron-grey hair hung tawted about his temples. -Only his face was changed and had the jail-white of the cells, for he had -been nearly two months in confinement. When I entered he did not know me; -indeed, he scarce looked the road I was on at first, but applied himself -zealously to the study of a book wherein he pretended to be rapturously -engrossed. -</p> -<p> -The fact that the Bible (for so it was) happened to be upside down in his -hands somewhat staggered my faith in the repentance of Daniel Risk, who, I -remembered, had never numbered reading among his arts. -</p> -<p> -I addressed him as Captain. -</p> -<p> -“I am no Captain,” said he in a whine, “but plain Dan Risk, the blackest -sinner under the cope and canopy of heaven.” And he applied himself to his -volume as before. -</p> -<p> -“Do you know me?” I asked, and he must have found the voice familiar, for -he rose from his stool, approached the bars of his cage, and examined me. -“Andy Greigs nephew!” he cried. “It's you; I hope you're a guid man?” - </p> -<p> -“I might be the best of men—and that's a dead one—so far as -you are concerned,” I replied, stung a little by the impertinence of him. -</p> -<p> -“The hand of Providence saved me that last item in my bloody list o' -crimes,” said he, with a singular mixture of the whine for his sins and of -pride in their number. “Your life was spared, I mak' nae doubt, that ye -micht repent o' your past, and I'm sorry to see ye in sic fallals o' -dress, betokenin' a licht mind and a surrender to the vanities.” - </p> -<p> -My dress was scantily different from what it had been on the <i>Seven -Sisters</i>, except for some lace, my tied hair, and a sword. -</p> -<p> -“Indeed, and I am in anything but a light frame of mind, Captain Risk,” I -said. “There are reasons for that, apart from seeing you in this condition -which I honestly deplore in spite of all the wrong you did me.” - </p> -<p> -“I thank God that has been forgiven me,” he said, with a hypocritical cock -of his hale eye. “I was lost in sin, a child o' the deevil, but noo I am -made clean,” and much more of the same sort that it is unnecessary herp to -repeat. -</p> -<p> -“You can count on my forgiveness, so far as that goes,” I said, disgusted -with his manner. -</p> -<p> -“I'm greatly obleeged,” said he, “but man's forgiveness doesna coont sae -muckle as a preen, and I would ask ye to see hoo it stands wi' yersel', -Daniel Risk has made his peace wi' his Maker, but what way is it wi' the -nephew o' Andrew Greig?” - </p> -<p> -“It ill becomes a man in a condemned cell to be preacher to those outside -of it,” I told him in some exasperation at his presumption. -</p> -<p> -He threw up his hands and glowered at me with his gleed eye looking seven -ways for sixpence as the saying goes. -</p> -<p> -“Dinna craw ower crouse, young man,” he said. “Whit brings ye here I canna -guess, but I ken that you that's there should be in here where I am, for -there's blood on your hands.” - </p> -<p> -He had me there! Oh, yes, he had me there! Every vein in my body told me -so. But I was not in the humour to make an admission of that kind to this -creature. -</p> -<p> -“I have no conceit of myself in any respect whatever, Daniel Risk,” I said -slowly. “I came here from France but yesterday after experiences there -that paid pretty well for my boy's crime, for I have heard from neither -kith nor kin since you cozened me on the boards of the <i>Seven Sisters</i>.” - </p> -<p> -He put his hands upon the bars and looked at me. He wore a prison garb of -the most horrible colour, and there were round him the foul stenches of -the cell. -</p> -<p> -“Ay!” said he. “New back! And they havena nabbed ye yet! Weel, they'll no' -be lang, maybe, o' doin' that, for I'll warrant ye've been advertised -plenty aboot the country; ony man that has read a gazette or clattered in -a public-hoose kens your description and the blackness o' the deed you're -chairged wi'. All I did was to sink a bit ship that was rotten onyway, -mak' free trade wi' a few ankers o' brandy that wad hae been drunk by the -best i' the land includin' the very lords that tried me, and accidentally -kill a lad that sair needed a beltin' to gar him dae his honest wark. But -you shot a man deliberate and his blood is crying frae the grund. If ye -hurry ye'll maybe dance on naethin' sooner nor mysel'.” - </p> -<p> -There was so much impotent venom in what he said that I lost my anger with -the wretch drawing near his end, and looked on him with pity. It seemed to -annoy him more than if I had reviled him. -</p> -<p> -“I'm a white soul.” says he, clasping his hands—the most arrant -blasphemy of a gesture from one whose deeds were desperately wicked! “I'm -a white soul, praise God! and value not your opinions a docken leaf. Ye -micht hae come here to this melancholy place to slip a bit guinea into my -hand for some few extra comforts, instead o' which it's jist to anger me.” - </p> -<p> -He glued his cheek against the bars and stared at me from head to foot, -catching at the last a glance of my fateful shoes. He pointed at them with -a rigid finger. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> </a> -</p> -<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> -<img src="images/407.jpg" alt="407" width="100%" /><br /> -</div> -<p> -“Man! man!” he cried, “there's the sign and token o' the lot o' ye—the -bloody shoon. They may weel be red for him and you that wore them. Red -shoon! red shoon!” He stopped suddenly. “After a',” said he, “I bear ye -nae ill-will, though I hae but to pass the word to the warder on the ither -side o' the rails. And oh! abin a' repent——” He was off again -into one of his blasphemies, for at my elbow now was an old lady who was -doubtless come to confirm the conversion of Daniel Risk. I turned to go. -</p> -<p> -He cast his unaffected eye piously heavenward, and coolly offered up a -brief prayer for “this erring young brother determined on the ways of vice -and folly.” - </p> -<p> -It may be scarce credible that I went forth from the condemned cell with -the most shaken mind I had had since the day I fled from the moor of -Mearns. The streets were thronged with citizens; the castle ramparts rose -up white and fine, the bastions touched by sunset fires, a window blazing -like a star. Above the muffled valley, clear, silvery, proud, rang a -trumpet on the walls, reminding me of many a morning rouse in far Silesia. -Was I not better there? Why should I be the sentimental fool and run my -head into a noose? Risk, whom I had gone to see in pity, paid me with a -vengeance! He had put into the blunt language of the world all the horror -I had never heard in words before, though it had often been in my mind. I -saw myself for the first time the hunted outlaw, captured at last. “You -that's out there should be in where I am!” It was true! But to sit for -weeks in that foul hole within the iron rail, waiting on doom, reflecting -on my folks disgraced—I could not bear it! -</p> -<p> -Risk cured me of my intention to hazard all on the flimsy chance of a -Government's gratitude, and I made up my mind to seek safety and -forgetfulness again in flight to another country. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XLIII -</h2> -<h3> -BACK TO THE MOORLAND -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> had seen yon remnant of a man in the Tolbooth cell, and an immediate -death upon the gallows seemed less dreadful than the degradation and the -doubt he must suffer waiting weary months behind bars. But gallows or cell -was become impossible for the new poltroon of Dan Risk's making to -contemplate with any equanimity, and I made up my mind that America was a -country which would benefit greatly by my presence, if I could get a -passage there by working for it. -</p> -<p> -Perhaps I would not have made so prompt a decision upon America had not -America implied a Clyde ship, and the Clyde as naturally implied a flying -visit to my home in Mearns. Since ever I had set foot on Scotland, and saw -Scots reek rise from Scots lums, and blue bonnets on Scots heads, and -heard the twang of the true North and kindly from the people about me, I -had been wondering about my folk. It was plain they had never got the -letter I had sent by Horn, or got it only recently, for he himself had -only late got home. -</p> -<p> -To see the house among the trees, then, to get a reassuring sight of its -smoke and learn about my parents, was actually of more importance in my -mind than my projected trip to America, though I did not care to confess -so much to myself. -</p> -<p> -I went to Glasgow on the following day; the snow was on the roofs; the -students were noisily battling; the bells were cheerfully ringing as on -the day with whose description I open this history. I put up at the -“Saracen Head,” and next morning engaged a horse to ride to Mearns. In the -night there had come a change in the weather; I splashed through slush of -melted snow, and soaked in a constant rain, but objected none at all -because it gave me an excuse to keep up the collar of my cloak, and pull -the brim of my hat well forward on my face and so minimise the risk of -identification. -</p> -<p> -There is the lichened root of an ancient fallen saugh tree by the side of -Earn Water between Kirkillstane and Driepps that I cannot till this day -look on without a deep emotion. Walter's bairns have seen me sitting there -more than once, and unco solemn so that they have wondered, the cause -beyond their comprehension. It was there I drew up my horse to see the -house of Kirkillstane from the very spot where I had rambled with my -shabby stanzas, and felt the first throb of passion for a woman. -</p> -<p> -The country was about me familiar in every dyke and tree and eminence; -where the water sobbed in the pool it had the accent it had in my dreams; -there was a broken branch of ash that trailed above the fall, where I -myself had dragged it once in climbing. The smell of moss and rotten -leafage in the dripping rain, the eerie aspect of the moorland in the -mist, the call of lapwings—all was as I had left it. There was not -the most infinite difference to suggest that I had seen another world, and -lived another life, and become another than the boy that wandered here. -</p> -<p> -I rode along the river to find the smoke rising from my father's house—thank -God! but what the better was the outlaw son for that? Dare he darken again -the door he had disgraced, and disturb anew the hearts he had made sore? -</p> -<p> -I pray my worst enemy may never feel torn by warring dictates of the -spirit as I was that dreary afternoon by the side of Earn; I pray he may -never know the pang with which I decided that old events were best let -lie, and that I must be content with that brief glimpse of home before -setting forth again upon the roads of dubious fortune. Fortune! Did I not -wear just now the very Shoes of Fortune? They had come I knew not whence, -from what magic part and artisan of heathendom I could not even guess, to -my father's brother; they had covered the unresting foot of him; to me -they had brought their curse of discontent, and so in wearing them I -seemed doomed to be the unhappy rover, too. -</p> -<p> -The afternoon grew loud with wind as I sat my horse beside the increasing -water; I felt desolate beyond expression. -</p> -<p> -“Well, there must be an end of it some way!” I said bitterly, and I turned -to go. -</p> -<p> -The storm opposed me as I cantered over Whig-gitlaw, and won by Brooms, -and Bishops Offerance, and Kilree. Shepherds sheltered in the lee of -dykes, and women hurried out and shuttered windows. I saw sheep hastening -into the angles of the fields, and the wild white sea-gull beating across -the sky. The tempest thrashed on me as though it could not have me go too -soon from the country of my shame; I broke the horse to gallop, and fields -and dykes flew by like things demented. -</p> -<p> -Then of a sudden the beast grew lame; I searched for a stone or a cast -shoe, but neither ailed him, and plainly the ride to town that night was -impossible. Where the beast failed was within half a mile of Newton, and -at all hazards I decided I must make for the inn there. I felt there were -risks of recognition, but I must run them. I led the horse by a side path, -and reached the inn no sooner than the darkness that fell that night with -unusual suddenness. Lights were in the house, and the sound of rural -merriment in the kitchen, where farm lads drank twopenny ale, and sang. -</p> -<p> -A man—he proved to be the innkeeper—came to my summons with a -lantern in his hand, and held it up to see what wayfarer was this in such -a night. He saw as little of me as my hat and cloak could reveal, and I -saw, what greatly relieved me, that he was not John Warnock, who had -tenanted the inn when I left the country, but a new tenant and one unknown -to me. He helped me to unsaddle the horse, discovered with me that the -lameness would probably succumb to a night in the stall, and unburdened -himself to the questions every unknown traveller in the shire of Renfrew -may expect. -</p> -<p> -“You'll be frae Ayr, maybe, or Irvine?” - </p> -<p> -No, I was from neither; I was from Glasgow. -</p> -<p> -“Say ye sae, noo! Dod! it's nae nicht for travelling and nae wonder your -horse is lamed. Ye'll be for ower Fenwick way, noo, i' the mornin'?” Nor -was I for over Fenwick way in the morning. I was for Glasgow again. -</p> -<p> -He looked from the corners of his eyes at this oddity who travelled like a -shuttle in such weather. I was drenched with rain, and my spatter-dashes, -with which I had thought to make up in some degree for the inadequate -foot-wear of red shoes on horseback, were foul with clay. He presumed I -was for supper? -</p> -<p> -“No,” I answered; “I'm more in the humour for bed, and I will be obliged -if you send to my room for my clothes in a little so that they may be dry -by the time I start in the morning, and I shall set out at seven if by -that time my horse is recovered.” - </p> -<p> -I drank a tankard of ale for the good of the house, as we say, during a -few minutes in the parlour, making my dripping clothes and a headache the -excuse for refusing the proffered hospitality of the kitchen where the -ploughboys sang, and then went to the little cam-ceiled room where a hasty -bed had been made for me. -</p> -<p> -The world outside was full of warring winds and plashing rains, into which -the yokels went at last reluctantly, and when they were gone I fell -asleep, wakening once only for a moment when my wet clothes were being -taken from the room. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CHAPTER XLIV -</h2> -<h3> -WHEREIN THE SHOES OF FORTUNE BRING ME HOME -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span> came down from my cam-ceiled room to a breakfast by candle-light in a -morning that was yet stormy. The landlord himself waited on me ('twas no -other than Ralph Craig that's now retired at the Whinnell), and he had a -score of apologies for his servant lass that had slept in too long, as he -clumsily set a table with his own hand, bringing in its equipment in -single pieces. -</p> -<p> -There was a nervousness in his manner that escaped me for a little in the -candle-light, but I saw it finally with some wonder, rueing I had agreed -to have breakfast here at all, and had not taken my horse, now recovered -of his lameness, and pushed on out of a neighbourhood where I had no right -in common sense to be. -</p> -<p> -If the meal was slow of coming it was hearty enough, though the host -embarrassed me too much with his attentions. He was clearly interested in -my personality. -</p> -<p> -“It's not the first time ye've been in the 'Red Lion,'” said he with an -assurance that made me stare. -</p> -<p> -“And what way should you be thinking that?” I asked, beginning to feel -more anxious about my position. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, jist a surmise o' my ain,” he answered. “Ye kent your way to the -stable in the dark, and then—and then there's whiles a twang o' the -Mearns in your speech.” - </p> -<p> -This was certainly coming too close! I hastened through my breakfast, paid -my lawing, and ordered out my horse. That took so long that I surmised the -man was wilfully detaining me. “This fellow has certainly some project to -my detriment,” I told myself, and as speedily as I might got into the -saddle. Then he said what left no doubt: -</p> -<p> -“They'll be gey glad to see ye at the Hazel Den, Mr. Greig.” - </p> -<p> -I felt a stound of anguish at the words that might in other circumstances -have been true but now were so remote from it. -</p> -<p> -“You seem to have a very gleg eye in your head,” I said, “and to have a -great interest in my own affairs.” - </p> -<p> -“No offence, Mr. Paul, no offence!” said he civilly, and indeed abashed. -“There's a lassie in the kitchen that was ance your mither's servant and -she kent your shoes.” - </p> -<p> -“I hope then you'll say nothing about my being here to any one—for -the sake of the servant's old mistress—that was my mother.” - </p> -<p> -“That <i>was</i> your mither!” he repeated. “And what for no' yet? She'll -be prood to see ye hame.” - </p> -<p> -“Is it well with them up there?” I eagerly asked. -</p> -<p> -I rode like fury home. The day was come before I reached the dykes of -Hazel Den. Smoke was rising from its chimneys; there was a homely sound of -lowing cattle, and a horse was saddling for my father who was preparing to -ride over to the inn at Newton to capture his errant son. He stood before -the door, a little more grey, a little more bent, a little more shrunken -than when I had seen him last. When I drew up before him with my hat in my -hand and leaped out of the saddle, he scarcely grasped at first the fact -that here was his son. -</p> -<p> -“Father! Father!” I cried to him, and he put his arms about my shoulders. -</p> -<p> -“You're there, Paul!” said he at last. “Come your ways in; your dear -mother is making your breakfast.” - </p> -<p> -I could not have had it otherwise—'twas the welcome I would have -chosen! -</p> -<p> -His eyes were brimming over; his voice was full of sobs and laughter as he -cried “Katrine! Katrine!” and my mother came to throw herself into my -arms. -</p> -<p> -My Shoes of Fortune had done me their one good office; they had brought me -home. -</p> -<p> -And now, my dear David, and Quentin, and Jean, my tale is ended, leaving -some folks who figured therein a space with their ultimate fortunes -unexplained. There is a tomb in Rome that marks the end of Prince Charles -Edward's wanderings and exploits, ambitions, follies, and passions. Of him -and of my countrywoman, Clementina Walkinshaw, you will by-and-by read -with understanding in your history-books. She died unhappy and disgraced, -yet I can never think of her but as young, beautiful, kind, the fool of -her affections, the plaything of Circumstance. Clancarty's after career I -never learned, but Thurot, not long after I escaped from him in Dunkerque, -plundered the town of Carrickfergus, in Ireland, and was overtaken by -three frigates when he was on his way back to France. His ships were -captured and he himself was killed. You have seen Dr. MacKellar here on a -visit from his native Badenoch; his pardon from the Government was all I -got, or all I wished for, from Mr. Pitt. “And where is Isobel Fortune?” - you will ask. You know her best as your grandmother, my wife. My Shoes of -Fortune, she will sometimes say, laughing, brought me first and last Miss -Fortune; indeed they did! I love them for it, but I love you, too, and -hope to keep you from the Greig's temptation, so they are to the fore no -longer. -</p> -<h3> -THE END -</h3> -<div style="height: 6em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shoes of Fortune, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHOES OF FORTUNE *** - -***** This file should be named 43732-h.htm or 43732-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/3/43732/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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