CHAPTER I

ONE FEARLESS MAN

Above the town of Dundee, and built to command the place, stood, at the date of our tale, Dudhope Castle, a good specimen of Scots architecture, which in its severity and strength is, like architecture everywhere, the physical incarnation of national creed and character. The hardness of Dudhope was softened in those days by what was not usual in the case of keeps and other warlike buildings, for Dudhope was set in the midst of sloping fields where cattle browsed, and had also round it rising plantations of wood. Before the castle there was a terrace, and from it one looked down upon the little town, nestling under the shelter of the castle, and across the Firth of Tay to Fifeshire, where so much Scots history had been made. It was to Dudhope Claverhouse brought his bride, after that stormy honeymoon which she had to spend under the shadow of her mother’s hot displeasure in Paisley Castle, 176 and he occupied with the weary hunt of Covenanters up and down the West Country. Their wedding day was the 10th of June, but it was not till August that Claverhouse and his wife came home to Dudhope. Since then four years have passed, during which the monotony of his duty in hunting Covenanters had been relieved by the office of Provost of Dundee, in which it is said he ruled severely, and the sameness of Jean’s life at Dudhope by a visit to the Court of London, where she produced a vast impression, and was said to have been adored in the highest quarter. There were hours when she felt very lonely, although she would not have confessed this, being a woman of invincible spirit and fortified by the courage of her love. She never knew when her husband would be called away for one of his hunts, and though there were many Loyalist families in Forfarshire, it was not a time for easy social intercourse, and Jean was conscious that the Carnegies and the rest of them of the old Cavalier stock looked askance at her, and suspected the black Covenanting taint in her blood. Claverhouse, like a faithful gentleman, had done his best to conceal from her the injury which his marriage had done him, but she knew that his cunning and bitter enemy, the Duke of 177 Queensberry, had constantly insinuated into the mind of the Duke of York and various high personages in London that no one who had married Lady Cochrane’s daughter could, in the nature of things, be perfectly loyal. It was really for this love that he had lost the post of commander-in-chief in Scotland, to which he was distinctly entitled, and had experienced the insult of having his name removed from the Scots Council. It might be her imagination, but it seemed as if his fellow officers and other friends, whom she met from time to time, were not at ease with her. She was angry when they refrained from their customary frank expressions about her mother’s party, just as she would have been angry if they had said the things they were accustomed to say in her presence. Claverhouse assured her on those happy days when he was living at Dudhope, and when they could be lovers among the woods there, as they had been in the pleasaunce at Paisley Castle, that he never regretted his choice, and that she was the inspiration of his life. It was pleasant to hear him repeat his love vows, with a passion as hot and words as moving as in the days of their courtship, and the very contrast between his unbending severity as a soldier and his grace as a lover 178 made him the more fascinating to a woman who was herself of the lioness breed. All the same, she could not forget that Claverhouse would have done better for himself if he had married into one of the great Scots houses of his own party––and there were few in which he would not have been welcome––and that indeed he could not have done much worse for his future than in marrying her. It was a day of keen rivalry among the Royalists, and a more unprincipled and disreputable gang than the king’s Scots ministers could not be found in any land; indeed Claverhouse was the only man of honor amongst them. His battle to hold his own and achieve his legitimate ambition was very hard, and certainly he needed no handicap. Jean Graham was haunted with the reflection that Claverhouse’s wife, instead of being a help, was a hindrance to her husband, and that if it were not for the burden of her Covenanting name, he would have climbed easily to the highest place. Nor could she relish the change of attitude of the common people towards her, and the difference in atmosphere between Paisley and Dundee. Once she had been accustomed to receive a respectful, though it might be awkward, salutation from the dour West Country folk, and to know that, though 179 in her heart she was not in sympathy with them, the people in the town, where her mother reigned supreme, felt kindly towards her, as the daughter of that godly Covenanting lady. In Dundee, where the ordinary people sided with the Presbyterians and only the minority were with the Bishops, men turned away their faces when she passed through the place, and the women cried “Bloody Claverse!” as she passed. She knew without any word of abuse that both she and her husband were bitterly hated, because he was judged a persecutor and she a renegade. They were two of the proudest people in Scotland, but although Claverhouse gave no sign that he cared for the people’s loathing, she often suspected that he felt it, being a true Scots gentleman, and although Jean pretended to despise Covenanting fanaticism, she would rather have been loved by the folk round her than hated. While she declared to Graham that her deliverance from her mother’s party, with their sermons, their denunciations, their narrowness and that horrible Covenant, had been a passage from bondage to liberty, there were times, as she paced the terrace alone and looked out on the gray sea of the east coast, when the contradictory circumstances of her life beset her 180 and she was troubled. When she was forced to listen to the interminable harangues of hill preachers, sheltering for a night in the castle, and day by day was resisting the domination of her mother, her mind rose in revolt against the Presbyterians and all their ways. When she was among men who spoke of those hillmen as if they were vermin to be trapped, and as if no one had breeding or honor or intelligence or sincerity except the Cavaliers, she was again goaded into opposition. Jean had made her choice both of her man and of her cause––for they went together––with her eyes open, and she was not a woman to change again, nor to vex herself with vain regrets. It was rather her nature to decide once for all, and then to throw herself without reserve into her cause, and to follow without question her man through good report and ill, through right, and, if need be, wrong. Yet she was a shrewd and high-minded woman, and not one of those fortunate fanatics who can see nothing but good on one side, and nothing but ill on the other. Life had grown intolerable in her mother’s house, and Jean had not in her the making of a convinced and thoroughgoing Covenanter, and in going over to the other party, she had, on the whole, fulfilled herself, 181 as well as found a mate of the same proud spirit. But she was honest enough to admit to herself that those Ayrshire peasants were dying for conscience’ sake, though she might think it a narrow conscience, and were sincere in their piety, though she might think it an unattractive religion. And she could not shut her eyes to the fact that there was little glory in shooting them down like muirfowl, or that the men of Claverhouse’s side were too often drunken and evil-living bravos.

Jean was feeling the situation in its acuteness that evening as she read for the third time a letter which had come from Edinburgh by the hands of Grimond. At the sight of the writing her pulse quickened, and Grimond marked, with jealous displeasure (for that impracticable Scot never trusted Jean), the flush of love upon her cheek and its joy in her eyes. She now drew the letter from her bosom, and this is what she read, but in a different spelling from ours and with some slight differences in construction, all of which have been translated:

SWEETHEART: It is my one trouble when I must leave you, and save when I am engaged on the king’s work my every thought is with you, for indeed it appeareth to me that if I loved you with strong desire on the day of our marriage, I love you more soul and body this day. When 182 another woman speaks to me in the daytime, though they say that she is fair, her beauty coming into comparison with your’s, is disparaged, beside the sheen of your hair and the richness of your lips, and though she may have a pleasant way with men, as they tell me, she hath no lure for me, as I picture you throw back your head and look at me with eyes that challenge my love. When the night cometh, and the task of the day is done, I hold you in my embrace, the proudest woman in Scotland, and you say again, as on that day in the pleasaunce, “For life, John Graham, and for death.”

It has not been easy living for you, Jean, since that marriage-day, when the trumpets were our wedding-bells, and your mother’s curse our benediction, and I take thought oftentimes that it has been harder for thee, Sweetheart, than for me. I had the encounters of the field with open enemies and of the Council with false friends, but thou hast had the loneliness of Dudhope, when I was not there to caress you and kiss away your cares. Faithful have you been to the cause, and to me, and I make boast that I have not been unfaithful myself to either, but the sun has not been always shining on our side of the hedge and there have been some chill blasts. Yet they have ever driven us closer into one another’s arms, and each coming home, if it has been like the first from the work of war, has been also like it a new marriage-day. Say you is it not true, Sweetheart, we be still bridegroom and bride, and shall be to the end?

When I asked you to be my wife, Jean, I told you that love even for you would not hinder me from doing the king’s work, but this matter I have had on hand in Edinburgh has tried me sorely,––though one in the Council would guess at my heart. I have also the fear that it will vex you greatly. Mayhap you have heard, for such news 183 flies fast, that we lighted upon Henry Pollock and a party of his people last week. They were going to some preaching and were taken unawares, and we captured them all, not without blows and blood. Pollock himself fought as ye might expect, like a man without fear, and was wounded. I saw that his cuts were bound up, and that he had meat and drink. We brought him on horseback to Edinburgh, treating him as well as we could, for while I knew what the end would be, and that he sought no other, I do not deny that he is an honest man and I do not forget that he loved you. Yesterday he was tried before the Council, and I gave strong evidence against him. Upon my word it was that he was declared guilty of rebellion against the king’s authority, and was condemned to death. None other could I do, Jean, for he that spared so dangerous and stalwart an enemy as Pollock, is himself a traitor, but when the Council were fain to insult him I rebuked them sharply and told them to their face that among them there was no spirit so clean and brave. This morning he was executed and since there was a fear lest the people who have greatly loved him should attempt to rescue, I was present with two troops of horse. It needeth not me to tell you that he died well, bidding farewell to earth and welcome to heaven in words I cannot forget, tho’ they sounded strange to me. Sweetheart, I will say something boldly in thine ear. I have had little time to think of heaven and little desire for such a place, but I would count myself fortunate if in the hour of death I were as sure of winning there as Henry Pollock. So he died for his side, and I helped him to his death; some day I may die for my side, and his friends will help me to my death. It is a dark day and a troubled nation. Henry Pollock and John Graham have both been thorough. God is our judge, wha kens but He may accept us baith? 184 But I cannot deny he was a saint, as ye once said of him, and that I shall never be, neither shall you, Jean Graham, my love and my heart’s delight

This is sore writing to me, but I would rather ye had it from my hand than from another’s, and I fear me ye will hear bitter words in Dundee of what has been done. This is the cup we have to drink and worse things may yet be coming, for I have the misgiving that black danger is at hand and that the king will have to fight for his crown. Before long, if I be not a false prophet, my old general, the Prince of Orange, will do his part to wrest the throne from his own wife’s father. If he does the crown will not be taken without one man seeing that other crowns be broken, but I fear me, Jean, I fear greatly. In Scotland the king’s chief servants be mostly liars and cowards, seeking every man after his own interest, with the heart of Judas Iscariot, and in London I doubt if they be much better. These be dreary news, and I wish to heaven I had better to send thee. This I can ever give, unless ye answer me that it is yours before, the love of my inmost heart till I am able to give you it in the kiss of my lips, with your arms again flung about me, as on that day. Till our meeting and for evermore, my dearest lady and only Sweetheart first and last, I am your faithful lover and servant,

John Graham.

So it had come to pass as she had often feared, that Pollock would die by Claverhouse’s doing, and now she had not been a woman if her heart were not divided that evening between her lovers, although she had no hesitation either then or in the past about her preference. Jean knew she was not made 185 to be the wife of an ascetic, but never could she forget the look in Pollock’s eyes when he told her of his love, nor cease to be proud that he had done her the chief honor a man can render to a woman. She knew then, and she knew better to-day, that she had never loved Pollock, and never indeed could have loved him as a woman loves her husband. But she revered him then, and he would have forever a place in her heart like the niche given to a saint, and she hoped that his prayers for her––for she knew he would intercede for her––would be answered in the highest. Nor could she refrain from the comparison between Pollock and Graham. In some respects they were so like one another, both being men of ancient blood and high tradition, both carrying themselves without shame and without fear, both being fanatics––the one for religion and the other for loyalty––and, it might be, both alike to be martyrs for their faith. And so unlike––the one unworldly, spiritual, and, save in self-defence, gentle and meek; the other charged with high ambition, fond of power, ready for battle, gracious in gay society, passionate in love. Who had the better of it in the fight––her debonair husband, with his body-guard of dragoons, striking down and capturing a 186 minister and a handful of shepherds, or that pure soul, who lived preaching and praying, and was willing to die praying and fighting against hopeless odds? She had cast in her lot with the Royalists, but it came over her that in the eternal justice Pollock, dying on the scaffold, was already victor, and Graham, who sent him there, was already the loser. If it had been cruel writing for Claverhouse, it was cruel reading for his wife, and yet, when she had read it over again, the passage on Pollock faded away as if it had been spiritualized and no longer existed for the earthly sense. She only lingered over the words of devotion and passion, and when she kissed again and again his signature she knew that whether he was to win or to be beaten, whether he was right or wrong, angel or devil––and he was neither––she belonged with her whole desire to Claverhouse.

Claverhouse’s letter to his wife was written in May, and by October his gloomy forebodings regarding the king were being verified. During the autumn William of Orange had been preparing to invade England, and it was freely said he would come on the invitation of the English people and as the champion of English liberty. From the beginning of the crisis James was badly advised, 187 and showed neither nerve nor discernment, and among other foolish measures was the withdrawal of the regular troops from Scotland and their concentration at London. From London James made a feeble campaign in the direction of the west, and Claverhouse, who was in command of the Scots Cavalry, and whose mind was torn between contempt for the feebleness of the military measures and impatience to be at the enemy, wrote to Jean, sending her, as it seemed to be his lot, mixed news of honor and despair.

For the fair hands of the Viscountess of Dundee, and Lady Graham of Claverhouse.

My Dearest Lady: If I have to send ye evil tidings concerning the affairs of the king, which can hardly be worse, let me first acquaint you with the honor His Majesty has bestowed upon me, and which I count the more precious because it bringeth honor to her who is dearer to me than life, and who has suffered much trouble through me. Hitherto our marriage has meant suffering of many kinds for my Sweetheart, though I am fain to believe there has been more consolation in our love, but now it is charged with the King’s favor and high dignity in the State. Whatever it be worth for you and me, and however long or short I be left to enjoy it, I have been made a Peer of Scotland by the titles written above, and what I like best in the matter, is that the peerage has been given––so it runs, and no doubt a woman loves to read such things of her man––for “Many good and eminent services rendered to His Majesty, and his dearest Royal brother, King Charles II, by 188 his right trusty and well-beloved Councilor, Major-General John Graham of Claverhouse; together with his constant loyalty and firm adherence upon all occasions to the true interests of the crown.” Whatever befalls me it pleases me that the king knows I have been loyal and that he is grateful for one faithful servant. So I kiss the hand of my Lady Viscountess and were I at Dudhope I might venture upon her lips, aye, more than once.

When I leave myself and come unto the King I have nothing to tell but what fills me with shame and fear. It was not good policy to call the troops from Scotland, where we could have held the land for the King, but one had not so much regret if we had been allowed to strike a blow against the Usurper. Had there been a heart in my Lord Feversham––it hurts me to reflect on the King––then the army should have made a quick march into the West, gathering round it all the loyal gentlemen, and struck a blow at the Prince before he had established himself in the land. By God’s help we had driven him and his Dutchmen, and the traitors who have flocked to him, into the sea. But it is with a sore heart I tell thee, tho’ this had better be kept to thy secret council, that there seemeth to be neither wisdom nor courage amongst us. His Majesty has been living in the Bishop’s Palace, and does nothing at the time, when to strike quickly is to strike for ever. Officers in high place are stealing away like thieves, and others who remain are preaching caution, by which they mean safety for themselves and their goods. “Damn all caution,” say I, to Feversham and the rest of them, “let us into the saddle and forward, let us strike hard and altogether, for the King and our cause!” If we win it will be a speedy end to rebellion and another Sedgemoor; if we are defeated, and I do not despise the Scots Brigade with Hugh MacKay, we shall fall with honor and not be a 189 scorn to coming generations. For myself, were it not for thee, Jean, I should crave no better end than to fall in a last charge for the King and the good cause. As it is, unless God put some heart into our leaders, the army will melt away like snow upon a dyke in the springtime, and William will have an open road to London and the throne of England. He may have mair trouble and see some bloodshed before he lays his hand on the auld crown of Scotland. When I may get awa to the North countrie I know not yet, but whether I be in the South, where many are cowards and some are traitors, or in the North, where the clans at least be true, and there be also not a few loyal Lowland Cavaliers, my love is ever with thee, dear heart, and warm upon my breast lies the lock of your golden hair.

Yours till death,

Dundee.

God was not pleased to reËnforce the king’s advisers, and his cause fell rapidly to pieces. Claverhouse withdrew the Scots Cavalry to the neighborhood of London, and wore out his heart in the effort to put manhood into his party, which was now occupied in looking after their own interests in the inevitable revolution. And again Claverhouse, or, as we should call him, Dundee, wrote to Jean:

Dearest and Bravest of Women: Were ye not that, as I know well, I had no heart in me to write this letter, for I have no good thing to tell thee about the cause of the King and it seems to me certain that, for the time at least, England is lost. I am now in London, and the days are far harder for me than when I campaigned with the 190 Usurper, and fought joyfully at Seneffe and Grave. It is ill to contain oneself when a man has to go from one to another of his comrades and ask him for God’s sake and the King’s sake to play the man. Then to get nothing but fair and false words, and to see the very officers that hold the King’s commission shuffling and lying, with one eye on King James and the other on the Prince of Orange. Had I my way of it I would shoot a dozen of the traitors to encourage the others. But the King is all for peace––peace, forsooth! when his enemies are at the door of the palace. What can one man do against so many, and a King too tolerant and good-natured––God forgive me, I had almost written too weak? It is not for me to sit in judgment on my Sovereign, but some days ago I gave my mind to Hamilton in his own lodgings, where Balcarres and certain of us met to take council. There were hot words, and no good came of it. Balcarres alone is staunch, and yesterday he went with me to Whitehall and we had our last word for the present with the King. He was gracious unto us, as he has ever been to me when his mind was not poisoned by Queensberry or Perth, and ye might care to know, Jean, what your man, much daring, said to His Majesty: “We have come, Sir, to ask a favor of your Majesty, and that ye will let us do a deed which will waken the land and turn the tide of affairs. Have we your permission to cause the drums to be beat of every regiment in London and the neighbourhood, for if ye so consent there will be twenty thousand men ready to start to-morrow morning. Before to-morrow night the road to London will be barred, and, please God, before a week is over your throne will be placed beyond danger.” For a space I think he was moved and then the life went out of him, and he sadly shook his head. “It is too late,” he said, “too late, and the shedding of blood would be vain.” But I saw 191 he was not displeased with us, and he signified his pleasure that we should walk with him in the Mall. Again I dared to entreat him not to leave his capital without a stroke, and in my soul I wondered that he could be so enduring. Had it been your man, Jean, he had been at the Prince’s throat before the Dutchman had been twenty-four hours in England. But who am I to reflect upon my King? and I will say it, that he spake words to me I can never forget. “You are brave men,” said the King, and, though he be a cold man, I saw that he was touched, “and if there had been twenty like you among the officers and nobles, things had not come to this pass. Ye can do nothing more in England, and for myself I have resolved to go to France, for if I stayed here I would be a prisoner, and there is but a short road between the prison and the graves of Kings. To you,” he said to Balcarres, “I leave the charge of civil affairs in Scotland,” and, then turning to me, “You, Lord Dundee, who ought before to have had this place, but I was ill-advised, shall be commander of the troops in Scotland. Do for your King what God gives you to do, and he pledges his word to aid you by all means in his power, and in the day of victory to reward you.” We knelt and kissed his hand, and so for the time, heaven grant it be not forever, bade goodbye to our Sovereign. As I walked down the Mall I saw a face I seemed to know, and the man, whoever he was, made a sign that he would speak with me. I turned aside and found to my amazement that the stranger, who was not in uniform, and did not court observation, was Captain Carlton, who served with me in the Prince’s army and of whom ye may have heard me speak. A good soldier and a fair-minded gentleman, tho’ of another way of thinking from me. After a brief salutation he told me that the Prince was already in London and had taken up his quarters at Zion House.

192

“Then,” said I to him, “it availeth nothing for some of us to remain in London, it were better that we should leave quickly.” “It might or it might not be,” he replied, being a man of few and careful words, “but before you go there is a certain person who desires to have a word with you. If it be not too much toil will you lay aside your military dress, and come with me this evening as a private gentleman to Zion House?” Then I knew that he had come from the Prince, and altho’ much tossed in my mind as to what was right to do, I consented, and ye will be astonished, Jean, to hear what happened.

There was none present at my audience, and I contented myself with bowing when I entered his presence, for your husband is not made to kiss the hands of one king in the morning and of another in the evening of the same day. The Prince, for so I may justly call him, expected none otherwise, and, according to his custom––I have often spoken of his silence––said at once, “My lord,” for he knows everything as is his wont, “it has happened as I prophesied, you are on one side and I am on another, and you have been a faithful servant to your master, as I told him you would be. If it had been in your power, I had not come so easily to this place, for the council you gave to the King has been told to me. All that man can do, ye have done, and now you may, like other officers, take service in the army under my command.” Whereupon I told the Prince that our house had never changed sides, and he would excuse me setting the example. He seemed prepared for this answer, and then he said, “You purpose, my lord, to return to Scotland, and I shall not prevent you, but I ask that ye stir not up useless strife and shed blood in vain, for the end is certain.” I will not deny, Jean, that I was moved by his words, for he is a strong man, and has men of the same kind with him. So far I went 193 as to say that if duty did not compell me I would not trouble the land. More I could not promise, and I reckon there is not much in that promise, for I will never see the Prince of Orange made King of Scotland with my sword in its sheath. If there be any other way out of it, I have no wish to set every man’s hand against his neighbour’s in Scotland. He bowed to me and I knew that the audience was over, and when I left Zion House, my heart was sore that my King was not as wise and resolute as this foreign Prince. The second sight has been given to me to-day, and, dear heart, I see the shroud rising till it reaches the face, but whose face I cannot see. What I have to do, I cannot see either, but in a few days I shall be in Edinburgh, with as many of my horse as I can bring. If peace be consistent with honor then ye will see me soon in Dudhope for another honeymoon, but if it is to be war my lot is cast, and, while my hand can hold it, my sword belongs to the King. But my heart, sweet love, is thine till it ceases to beat.

Yours always and altogether,

Dundee.

Early springtime is cruel on the east coast of Scotland, and it was a bitter morning in March when Dundee took another of his many farewells before he left his wife to attend the Convention at Edinburgh. It was only a month since he had come down from London, disheartened for the moment by the treachery of Royalists and the timidity of James, and he had found relief in administrating municipal affairs as Provost of Dundee. If it had been possible in consistence with his loyalty to the Jacobite cause, and the commission he had received from James, Dundee would have gladly withdrawn from public life and lived quietly with his wife. He was an ambitious man, and of stirring spirit, but none knew better the weakness of his party, and no one on his side had been more shamefully treated. It had been his lot to leave his bride on their marriage day, and now it would be harder to leave her at 195 a time when every husband desires to be near his wife. But the summons to be present at the Convention had come, and its business was to decide who should be King of Scotland, for though William had succeeded to the throne of England, James still reigned in law over the northern kingdom. Dundee could not be absent at the deposition of his king and the virtual close of the Stuart dynasty. As usual he would be one of a beaten party, or perhaps might stand alone; it was not his friends but his enemies who were calling him to Edinburgh, and the chances were that the hillmen would settle their account with him by assassination. His judgment told him that his presence in Edinburgh would be fruitless, and his heart held him to his home. Yet day after day he put off his going. It was now the thirteenth of March, and to-morrow the Convention would meet, and if he were to go he must go quickly. He had been tossed in mind and troubled in heart, but the instinct of obedience to duty which Graham had obeyed through good report and evil, without reserve, and without scruple, till he had done not only the things he ought to have done, but many things also which he ought not to have done, finally triumphed. He had told Jean that morning 196 that he must leave. His little escort of troopers were saddling their horses, and in half an hour they would be on the road, the dreary, hopeless road it was his fate to be ever travelling. Jean and he were saying their last words before this new adventure, for they both knew that every departure might be the final parting. They were standing at the door, and nothing could be grayer than their outlook. For a haar had come up from the sea, as is common on the east coast, and the cold and dripping mist blotted out the seascape; it hid the town of Dundee, which lay below Dudhope, and enveloped the castle in its cold garments, like a shroud, and chilled Graham and his wife to the very bone.

“Ye will acknowledge, John, that I have never hindered you when the call came.” As she spoke Jean took his flowing hair in her hand, and he had never seen her so gentle before, for indeed she could not be called a soft or tender woman.

“Ye told me what would be the way of life for us, and it has been what ye said, and I have not complained. But this day I wish to God that ye could have stayed, for when my hour comes, and it is not far off, ye ken I will miss you sairly. Other women have their mothers with them in that strait, but for me 197 there is none; naebody but strangers. If ony evil befall thee, John, it will go ill with me, and I have in my keeping the hope of your house. Can ye no bide quietly here with me and let them that have the power do as they will in Edinburgh? No man of your own party has ever thanked you for anything ye did, and if my mother’s people do their will by you, I shall surely die and the child with me. And that will be the end of the House of Dundee. Must ye go and leave me?” And now her arm was round him, and with the other hand she caressed his face, while her warm bosom pressed against his cold, hard cuirass.

“Queensberry, for the liar he always was, said ye would be my Delilah, Jean, but that I knew was not in you,” said Dundee, smiling sadly and stroking the proud head, which he had never seen bowed before.

“You are, I believe in my soul, the bravest woman in Scotland, and I wish to God the men on our side had only had the heart of my Lady Dundee. With a hundred men and your spirit in them, Jean, we had driven William of Orange into the sea, or, at the worst, we should certainly save Scotland for the king. Well and bravely have ye stood by me since our marriage day, and if I had ever 198 consulted my own safety or sought after private ends, I believe ye would have been the first to cry shame upon me. Surely ye have been a true soldier’s wife, and ye are the same this morning, and braver even than on our wedding day.

“Do not make little of yourself, Jean, because your heart is sore and ye canna keep back the tears. It is not given to a man to understand what a woman feels in your place but I am trying to imagine, and my love is suffering with you, sweetheart. I do pity you, and I could weep with you, but tears are strange to my eyes––God made me soft without and hard within––and I have a better medicine to help you than pity.” Still he was caressing her, but she felt his body straightening within the armor.

“When ye prophesy that the fanatics of the west will be at me in Edinburgh, I suspect ye are right, but I pray you not to trouble yourself overmuch. They have shot at me before with leaden bullets and with silver, trying me first as a man and next as a devil, but no bullet touched me, and now if they fall back upon the steel there are two or three trusty lads with me who can use the sword fairly well, and though your husband be not a large man, Jean, none has had the 199 better of him when it came to sword-play. So cheer up, lass, for I may fall some day, but it will not be at the hands of a skulking Covenanter in a street brawl.

“But if this should come to pass, Jean––and the future is known only to God––then I beseech you that ye be worthy of yourself, and show them that ye are my Lady Dundee. If I fall, then ye must live, and take good care that the unborn child shall live, too, and if he be a boy––as I am sure he will be––then ye have your life-work. Train him up in the good faith and in loyalty to the king; tell him how Montrose fought for the good cause and died for it, and how his own father followed in the steps of the Marquis. Train him for the best life a man can live and make him a soldier, and lay upon him from his youth that ye will not die till he has avenged his father’s murder. That will be worthy of your blood and your rank, aye, and the love which has been between us, Jean Cochrane and John Graham.”

She held him in her arms till the very breastplate was warm, and she kissed him twice upon the lips. Then she raised herself to her full height––and she was as tall as Graham––and looking proudly at him, she said:

“Ye have put strength into me, as if the iron which covers your breast had passed into my blood. Ye go to-day with my full will to serve the king, and God protect and prosper you, my husband and my Lord Dundee.”

For a space the heat of Jean’s high courage cheered her husband’s heart, but as the day wore on, and hour by hour he rode through the cold gray mist which covered Fife, the temperature of his heart began to correspond with the atmosphere. While Dundee had always carried himself bravely before men, and had kept his misgivings to himself, and seemed the most indifferent of gay Cavaliers, he had really been a modest and diffident man. From the first he had had grave fears of the success of his cause, and more than doubts about the loyalty of his comrades. He was quite prepared not only for desperate effort, but for final defeat. No man could say he had embarked on the royal service from worldly ends, and now, if he had been a shrewd Lowland Scot, he had surely consulted his safety and changed his side, as most of his friends were doing. Graham did not do this for an imperative reason––because he had been so made that he could not. There are natures which are not consciously dishonest or treacherous, but which are flexible 201 and accommodating. They are open to the play of every influence, and are sensitive to environment; they are loyal when others are loyal, but if there be a change in spirit round them they immediately correspond, and they do so not from any selfish calculation, but merely through a quick adaptation to environment. People of this kind find themselves by an instinct on the winning side, but they would be mightily offended if they were charged with being opportunists. They are at each moment thoroughly convinced of their integrity, and are ever on the side which commends itself to their judgment; if it happens to be the side on which the sun is shining, that is a felicitous accident. There are other natures, narrower possibly and more intractable, whose chief quality is a thoroughgoing and masterful devotion, perhaps to a person, perhaps to a cause. Once this devotion is given, it can never be changed by any circumstance except the last and most inexcusable treachery, and then it will be apt to turn into a madness of hatred which nothing will appease. There is no optimism in this character, very often a clear-sighted and painful acceptance of facts; faults are distinctly seen and difficulties are estimated at their full strength, sacrifice is discounted, 202 and defeat is accepted. But the die is cast, and for weal or woe––most likely woe––they must go on their way and fight the fight to the end. This was the mould in which Dundee was cast, the heir of shattered hopes, and the descendant of broken men, the servant of a discredited and condemned cause. He faced the reality, and knew that he had only one chance out of a hundred of success; but it never entered his mind to yield to circumstances and accept the new situation. There was indeed a moment when he would have been willing, not to change his service, but to sheathe his sword and stand apart. That moment was over, and now he had bidden his wife good-by and was riding through the cold gray mist to do his weary, hopeless best for an obstinate, foolish, impracticable king, and to put some heart, if it were possible, into a dwindling handful of unprincipled, self-seeking, double-minded men. The day was full of omens, and they were all against him. Twice a hare ran across the road, and Grimond muttered to himself as he rode behind his master, “The ill-faured beast.” As they passed through Glenfarg, a raven followed them for a mile, croaking weirdly. A trooper’s horse stumbled and fell, and the man had to be left behind, insensible. When 203 they halted for an hour at Kinross it spread among the people who they were, and they were watched by hard, unsympathetic faces. The innkeeper gave them what they needed, but with ill grace, and it was clear that only fear of Dundee prevented him refusing food both to man and beast. When they left a crowd had gathered, and as they rode out from the village a voice cried: “Woe unto the man of blood––a double woe! He goeth, but he shall not return, his doom is fixed.” An approving murmur from the hearers showed what the Scots folk thought of John Graham. Grimond would fain have turned and answered this Jeremiah and his chorus with a touch of the sword, but his commander forbade him sharply. “We have other men to deal with,” he said to Grimond, “than country fanatics, and our work is before us in Edinburgh.” But he would not have been a Scot if he had been indifferent to signs, and this raven-croak the whole day long rang in his heart. The sun struggled for a little through the mist, and across Loch Leven they saw on its island the prison-house of Mary. “Grimond,” said Graham, “there is where they kept her, and by this road she went out on her last hopeless ride, and we follow her, Jock. But not to a prison, ye 204 may stake your soul on that. It was enough that one Graham should die upon a scaffold. The next will die in the open field.”

It was late when they reached Edinburgh, and a murky night when they rode up Leith Wynd; the tall houses of Edinburgh hung over them; the few lights struggled against the thick, enveloping air. Figures came out of one dark passage, and disappeared into another. A body of Highlanders, in the Campbell tartan, for a moment blocked the way. Twice they were cursed by unknown voices, and when Claverhouse reached his lodging someone called out his name, and added: “The day of vengeance is at hand. The blood of John Brown crieth from the altar!” And Grimond kept four troopers on guard all night.

The next night Claverhouse and Balcarres were closeted together, the only men left to consult for the royal cause, and both knew what was going to be the issue.

“There is no use blinding our eyes, Balcarres,” said Graham, “or feeding our hearts with vain hopes, the Convention is for the Prince of Orange, and is done with King James. The men who kissed his hand yesterday, when he was in power, and would have licked his feet if that had got them place and 205 power, will be the first to cast him forth and cry huzza for the new king. There is a black taint in the Scots blood, and there always have been men in high position to sell their country. The lords of the congregation were English traitors in Mary’s day, and on them as much as that wanton Elizabeth lay her blood. It was a Scots army sold Charles I to the Roundheads, and it would have been mair decent to have beheaded him at Edinburgh. And now they will take the ancient throne of auld Scotland and hand it over, without a stroke, to a cold-blooded foreigner who has taught his wife to turn her hand against her own father. God’s ban is upon the land, Balcarres, for one party of us be raging fanatics, and the other party be false-hearted cowards. Lord, if we could set the one against the other, Argyle’s Highlanders against the West Country Whigs, it were a bonnie piece of work, and if they fought till death the country were well rid o’ baith, for I know not whether I hate mair bitterly a Covenanter or a Campbell. But it would set us better, Balcarres, to keep our breath to cool oor ain porridge. What is this I hear, that Athole is playing the knave, and that Gordon cannot be trusted to keep the castle? Has the day come upon us that the best names 206 in Scotland are to be dragged in the mire? I sairly doot that for the time the throne is lost to the auld line, but if it is to be sold by the best blood of Scotland, then I wish their silver bullet had found John Graham’s heart at Drumclog.”

“Ye maunna deal ower hardly with Athole, Dundee, for I will not say he isna true. His son, mind you, is on the other side, and Athole himself is a man broken in body. These be trying times, and it is not every ane has your heart. It may be that Athole and other men judge that everything has been done that can, and that a heavy burden o’ guilt will rest on ony man that spills blood without reason. Mind you,” went on Balcarres hastily, as he saw the black gloom gathering on Dundee’s face, “I say not that is my way of it, for I am with you while ony hope remains, but we maun do justice.”

“Justice!” broke in Claverhouse, irritated beyond control by Balcarres’s apologies and his hint of compromise. “If I had my way of it, every time-serving trickster in the land would have justice––a rope round his neck and a long drop, for a bullet would be too honorable a death. But let Athole pass. He was once a loyal man, and there may be reason in what ye say. I have never known 207 sickness myself, and doubtless it weakens even strong men. But what is this I hear of Gordon? Is it a lie that he is trafficking with Hamilton and the Whig lords to surrender the castle? If so, he is the most damnable traitor of them all, and will have his place with Judas Iscariot.”

“Na, na, Dundee, nae Gordon has ever been false, though I judge maist o’ them, since Mary’s day, have been foolish. Concerning the castle, this is how the matter stands, and I pray you to hear me patiently and not to fly out till I have finished.”

“For God’s sake, speak out and speak on, and dinna sit watching me as if you were terrified for your life, and dinna pick your words, like a double-dealing, white-blooded Whig lawyer, or I will begin to think that the leprosy of cowardice has reached the Lindsays.”

“Weel, Dundee”––but Balcarres was still very careful with his word––“I have reason to believe, and, in fact, I may as well say I know, that there have been some goings and comings between Gordon and the Lords of Convention. I will not say that Gordon isna true to the king, and that he would not hold the castle if it would help the cause. But I am judging that he isna minded to be left 208 alone and keep Edinburgh Castle for King James if all Scotland is for King William.” And Balcarres, plucking up courage in the face of his fierce companion, added: “I will not say, Dundee, that the duke is wrong. What use would it be if he did? But mind you,” went on Balcarres hastily, “he hasna promised to surrender his trust. He is just waiting to see what happens.”

“Which they have all been doing, every woman’s son of them, instead of minding their duty whatever happens; but I grant there’s no use raging, we maun make our plans. What does Gordon want if he’s holding his hand? Out with it, Balcarres, for I see from your face ye ken.”

“If the duke,” replied Balcarres, “had ony guarantee that a fight would be made for the auld line in Scotland, and that he would not be left alane, like a sparrow upon the housetop in Edinburgh Castle, I make certain he would stand fast; but if the royal standard is to be seen nowhere else except on one keep––strong though that be––the duke will come to terms wi’ the Convention. There ye have the situation, mak’ o’ it what ye will.”

“By God, Balcarres, if that be true, and I jalouse that ye are richt, Gordon will get his 209 assurance this very nicht. It’s a fair and just pledge he asks, and I know the man who’ll give it to him. Edinburgh will no be the only place in the land where the good standard flies before many days are passed. Man! Balcarres, this is good news ye have brought, and I am glad to ken that there is still red blood in Gordon’s heart. I’m thinking ye’ve had your own communings wi’ the duke, and that ye ken the by-roads to the castle. Settle it that he and I can meet this very nicht, and if need be I’ll be ready to leave the morrow’s morning. Aye, Balcarres, if the duke holds the fastness, I’ll look after the open country.” And before daybreak there was a meeting between the Gordon and the Graham. They exchanged pledges, each to do his part, but both of them knew an almost hopeless part, for the king. Many a forlorn hope had their houses led, and this would be only one more.

While his master had been reËnforcing the duke’s determination and giving pledges of thoroughness, Grimond had been doing his part to secure Dundee’s safety in the seat of his enemies. Edinburgh was swarming with West Country Whigs, whose day of victory had come, and who had hurried to the capital that they might make the most of it. No one 210 could blame them for their exultation, least of all Claverhouse. They had been hunted like wild beasts, they had been scattered when worshipping God according to the fashion of their fathers, they had been shot down without a trial, they had been shut up in noisome prisons––and all this because they would not submit to the most corrupt government ever known in Scotland, and that most intolerable kind of tyranny which tries, not only to coerce a man as a citizen, but also as a Christian. They had many persecutors, but, on the whole, the most active had been Graham, and it was Graham they hated most. It is his name rather than that of Dalzell or Lauderdale which has been passed with execration from mouth to mouth and from generation to generation in Scotland. The tyrant James had fled, like the coward he was, and God’s deliverer had come––a man of their own faith––in William of Orange. The iron doors had been burst and the fetters had been broken, there was liberty to hear the word of the Lord again, and the Kirk of Scotland was once more free. Justice was being done, but it would not be perfect till Claverhouse suffered the penalty of his crimes. It had been the hope of many a dour Covenanter, infuriated by the wrongs of his 211 friends, if not his own, to strike down Claverhouse and avenge the sufferings of God’s people. Satan had protected his own, but now the man of blood was given into their hands. Surely it was the doing of the Lord that Dundee should have left Dudhope, where he was in stronghold, and come up to Edinburgh, where his friends were few. That he should go at large upon the streets and take his seat in the Convention, that he should dare to plot against William and lift a hand for James in this day of triumph, was his last stroke of insolence––the drop which filled his cup to overflowing. He had come to Edinburgh, to which he had sent many a martyr of the Covenant, and where he had seen Henry Pollock die for Christ’s crown and the Scots kirk. Behold! was it not a sign, and was it not the will of the Lord that in this high place, where godly men had been murdered by him, his blood should be spilled as an offering unto the Lord?

This was what the hillmen were saying among themselves as they gathered in their meetings and communed together in their lodgings. They were not given to public vaporing, and were much readier to strike than to speak, but when there are so many, and their hearts are so hot, a secret cannot 212 be easily kept. And Grimond, who concealed much shrewdness behind a stolid face––which is the way with Scots peasants––caught some suspicious words as two unmistakable Covenanters passed him in the high street. If mischief was brewing for his master, it was his business to find it out and take a hand in the affair. He followed the pair as if he were a countryman gaping at the sights of the town and the stir of those days, when armed men passed on every side and the air was thick with rumors. When the Covenanters, after glancing round, plunged down a dark entry and into an obscure tavern, Grimond, after a pause, followed cautiously, assuming as best he could––and not unsuccessfully––the manner of a man from the west. The outer room was empty when he entered, and he was careful when he got his measure of ale to bend his head over it for at least five minutes by way of grace. The woman, who had glanced sharply at him on entry, was satisfied by this sign of godliness, and left him in a dark corner, from which he saw one after another of the saints pass into an inner chamber. Between the two rooms there was a wooden partition, and through a crack in the boarding Grimond was able to see and hear what was going on. 213 It was characteristic of the men that they opened their conference of assassination with prayer, in which the sorrows of the past were mentioned with a certain pathos, and thanks given for the great deliverance which had been wrought. Then they asked wisdom and strength to finish the Lord’s work, and to rid the land of the chief of the Amalekites, after which they made their plan. Although Grimond could not catch everything that was said, he gathered clearly that when Claverhouse left his lodging to attend the Convention on the morning of the fifteenth of March, they would be waiting in the narrow way, as if talking with friends, and would slay the persecutor before he could summon help. When it was agreed who should be present, and what each one should do, they closed their meeting, as they had opened it, with prayer. One of them glanced suspiciously round the kitchen as he passed through, but saw no man, for Grimond had quietly departed. He knew his master’s obstinate temper and reckless courage, and was afraid if he told him of the plot that he would give no heed, or trust to his own sword. “We’ll run no risks,” said Grimond to himself, and next morning a dozen troopers of Claverhouse’s regiment guarded the entry to his lodging, and a dozen more were 214 scattered handily about the street. They followed him to the Convention and waited till he returned. That was how Claverhouse lived to fight the battle of Killiecrankie, but till that day came he had never been so near death as in that narrow way of Edinburgh.

Dundee was not a prudent man, and he was very fearless, but for once he consulted common-sense and made ready to leave Edinburgh. It was plain that the Convention would elect William to the throne of Scotland, and as the days passed it was also very bitter to him that the Jacobites were not very keen about the rising. When he learned that his trusted friends were going to attend the Convention, and did not propose with undue haste to raise the standard for the king, Dundee concluded that if anything should be done, it would not be by such cautious spirits. As he seemed to be the sole hope of his cause, the sooner he was out of Edinburgh the better. When he was seen upon the street with fifty of his troopers, mounted and armed, there was a wild idea of arresting him, but it came to nothing. There was not time to gather the hillmen together, and there was no heart in the others to face this desperate man and his body-guard. With his men behind him, he rode down Leith Wynd unmolested, and when someone 215 cried, “Where art thou going, Lord Dundee?” he turned him round in the saddle and answered, “Whither the spirit of Montrose will lead me.” A fortnight later, in front of his house at Dudhope, he raised the standard for King James, and Jean Cochrane, a mother now, holding their infant son in her arms, stood by his side before he rode north. As he had left her on their marriage day with his troopers, so now he left her and their child, to see her only once again––a cruel meeting, before he fell. Verily, a life of storm and stress, of bitter conflicts and many partings. Verily, a man whom, right or wrong, the fates were treating as a victim and pursuing to his doom.

It is said that those stories are best liked which present a hero and sing his achievements from beginning to end. And the more faultless and brilliant the hero, the better goes the tale, and the louder the applause. Certainly John Graham is the central figure in this history, and so rich is the color of the man and so intense his vitality, that other personages among whom he moves become pale and uninteresting. They had, if one takes the long result, a larger share in affairs, and their hand stretches across the centuries, but there was not in them that charm of humanity which captivates the heart. One must study the work of William of Orange if he is to understand the history of his nation, but one would not go round the corner to meet him. Claverhouse, if one faces the facts and sweeps away the glamour, was only a dashing cavalry officer, who happened to win an insignificant battle by obvious local tactics, 217 and yet there are few men whom one would prefer to meet. One would make a long journey to catch a sight of Claverhouse riding down the street, as one to-day is caught by the fascination of his portrait. But the reader has already discovered that Graham can hardly be called a hero by any of the ordinary tests except beauty of personal appearance. He was not an ignorant man, as certain persons have concluded from the varied and picturesque habits of his spelling, but his friends cannot claim that he was endowed with rich intellectual gifts. He had sense enough to condemn the wilder excesses of his colleagues in the government of the day, but he had not force enough to replace their foolishness by a wiser policy. Had his powers been more commanding, or indeed if he had had any talent for constructive action, with his unwavering integrity and masterful determination, he might have ousted Lauderdale and saved Scotland for King James. But accomplished intriguers and trained politicians were always too much for Claverhouse, and held him as a lithe wild animal is caught in the meshes of a net.

Wild partisans, to whom every man is either white as snow or black as pitch, have gone mad over Graham, making him out, according 218 to their craze, either an angel or a devil, and forgetting that most men are half and between. But it must be also said that those who hold John Graham to have been a Jacobite saint are the more delirious in their minds, and hysterical in their writing, for they will not hear that he ever did anything less than the best, or that the men he persecuted had any right upon their side. He is from first to last a perfect paladin of romance whom everyone is bound to praise. Then artists rush in and not only make fine trade of his good looks, but lend his beauty to the clansmen who fought at Killiecrankie, till the curtain falls upon “Bonnie Dundee” being carried to his grave by picturesque and broken-hearted Highlanders dressed in the costly panoply of the Inverness Gathering, and with faces of the style of George MacDonald or Lord Leighton. Whatever Claverhouse was, and this story at least suggests that he was brave and honorable, he was in no sense a saint, and would have been the last to claim this high degree. It is open to question whether he deserved to be called a good man, for he was ambitious of power and, perhaps for public ends, of wealth; he had no small measure of pride and jealousy in him; he was headstrong and unmanageable, 219 and for his own side he was unrelenting and cruel. There are things he would not have done to advance his cause, as, for instance, tell lies, or stain his honor, but he never would have dreamed of showing mercy to his opponent. Nor did he ever try to enter into his mind or understand what the other man was feeling.

It is sometimes judged enough for a hero that he succeed without being clever or good, but neither did Graham pass this doubtful and dangerous test. For when you clear away the romance which heroic poetry and excited prose have flung around him, you were an optimist if you did not see his life was one long failure as well as a disappointment and a sorrow. He did bravely with the Prince of Orange, and yet somehow he missed promotion; he was the best officer the government had in Scotland, and yet it was only in the last resort he became commander-in-chief. He was the only honest man among a gang of rascals in the Scots council, and yet he was once dismissed from it; he was entitled to substantial rewards, and yet he had to make degrading appeals to obtain his due. He was loyal to foolishness, yet he was represented to the Court as a man who could not be trusted. He had only two love affairs; 220 the first brought him the reputation of mercenary aims, and the second almost ruined his life. He embarked on a contest which was hopeless from the beginning, and died at the close of a futile victory. Except winning the heart of Jean Cochrane, he failed in everything which he attempted. With the exception of his wife he was betrayed on every hand, while a multitude hated him with all their strength and thirsted for his blood. If Jean were not true to him there would not be one star in the dark sky of Claverhouse’s life.

But this irredeemable and final disaster is surely incredible. Dundee, fooled as he had been both by his master and by his friends till he was alone and forsaken, was bound to put his whole trust in his wife. Had she not made the last sacrifices for him and through dark days stood bravely by his side? Their private life had not always run smoothly, for if in one way they were well mated, because both were of the eagle breed, in another way, they were ill-suited, because they were so like. John Graham and Jean Cochrane both came of proud houses which loved to rule, and were not accustomed to yield, they both had iron and determined wills, they shared the dubious gift of a lofty temper and fiery 221 affections. They were set upon their own ways, and so they had clashed many a time in plan and deed; hot words had passed between them, and they had been days without speech. But below the tumult of contending wills, and behind the flash of fiery hearts, they were bound together by the passion of their first love, which had grown and deepened, and by that respect which strong and honorable people have for one another. They could rage, but each knew that the other could not lie; they could be most unreasonable, but each knew that the other could never descend to dishonor, so their quarrels had always one ending, and seemed, after they were over, to draw them closer together and to feed their love. One could not think of them as timid and gentle creatures, billing and cooing their affection; one rather imagined the lion and his lioness, whose very love was fierce and perilous. No power from without could separate these two nor make them quail. Alone and united Dundee and his wife could stand undismayed and self-sufficient, with all Scotland against them. Nothing could ever break their bond except dishonor. But if one should charge the other with that foulest crime, then the end had come, beside which death would be welcome. 222 Where life is a comedy one writes with gayety not untouched by contempt; where life is a tragedy one writes with tears not unredeemed by pride. But one shrinks when the tragedy deepens into black night, and is terrified when strong passions, falling on an evil day, work their hot wills, with no restraining or favorable fate. There are people whose life is a primrose path along which they dance and prattle, whose emotions are a pose, whose thoughts are an echo, whose trials are a graceful luxury; there are others whose way lies through dark ravines and beside raging torrents, over whose head the black clouds are ever lowering, and whom any moment the lightning may strike. This was their destiny. Upon their marriage day one saw the way that these two would have to go, and it was inevitable that they should drink their cup to the dregs.

The blame of what happened must be laid at Graham’s door, and in his last hours he took it altogether to himself; but since it has to be written about, and he showed so badly, let us make from the first the best excuse we can for him, and try to appreciate his state of mind. It was a brave event and a taking scene when he set up the standard of King James above Dundee, and he left to raise the 223 North Country with a flush of hope. It soon passed away and settled down into dreary determination, as he made his toilsome journey with a handful of followers by Aboyne and Huntly, till he landed in Inverness. The Gordons had sent him a reËnforcement, and certain of the chiefs had promised their support, but the only aid the Highlanders had given was of dubious value and very disappointing issue. The MacDonalds had hastened to Inverness by way of meeting Dundee, and then had seized the opportunity to plunder their old enemies, the Mackintoshes, and to extract a comfortable ransom out of Inverness. This was not his idea of war, and Dundee scolded Keppoch, who commanded the MacDonalds, most vigorously. Keppoch immediately returned homeward to his fastnesses with the accumulated spoil, partly because his fine, sensitive Highland nature was hurt by Dundee’s plain speech, and partly because whatever happened it was wise to secure what they had got. It is no reflection on Dundee’s manhood that he was cast down during those days at Inverness, for a ten times more buoyant man would have lost heart. His life was a romantic drama, and it seemed as if the Fates had constructed it for the stage, for now, after the 224 lapse of years, MacKay, his old rival in Holland, reappears, and they resume the duel, which this time is to be unto death. While Dundee was struggling in Edinburgh to save the throne for James, MacKay was on his way with regiments of the Scots Brigade to make sure of Scotland for William. A few days after Dundee left Edinburgh MacKay arrived, and now, as Dundee rode northward in hot haste, MacKay was on his track. Both were eager for a meeting, but the bitterness of it for Dundee was that he dared not run the risk. With all his appeals and all his riding, he had only a handful of mounted men, and the clans had not risen. It seemed as if his enterprise were futile, and that Scotland would not lift a hand for King James. He might be a commander-in-chief, but he was a commander of nobody; he might raise a standard, but it was only a vain show. It did not matter where he went or what he did; he was not a general, but a fugitive, a man to be neglected, and his following a handful of bandits. The rising was a thing to laugh at, and the report was current in the capital that he had absconded with one or two servants. This pretty description of his campaign had not reached his ears, but the humiliation of his situation burned into his 225 proud heart. Much as he would have liked to meet MacKay, there remained for him no alternative but flight. Flight was the only word which could describe his journey, and as he planned his course on the morrow, how he would ride to Invergarry, and then return on his course, and then make his way to Cluny, he started to his feet and paced the room in a fury of anger. What better was he than a hare with the hounds after him, running for his life, and doubling in his track, fleeing here and dodging there, a cowering, timid, panting animal of the chase? “Damnation!” and Dundee flung himself out of the room, and paced up and down the side of the river.

There was a dim light upon the running water, and his thoughts turned to the West Country, to the streams he had often crossed and along whose bed he had sometimes ridden, as he hunted for his Covenanting prey. The Fates were just, for now the Whigs were the hunters and he was the hunted. He began to understand what it was to be ever on the alert for the approach of the enemy, to escape at the first sign of danger, to cross hills in full flight, and to be listening for the sound of the pursuer. As yet he had not to hide, but before many days were over he also 226 may be skulking in moss-hags, and concealing himself in caves, and disguising himself in peasant’s garments, he, John Graham of Claverhouse, and my Viscount of Dundee. The tables had turned with a vengeance, and the day of the godly had come. The hillmen would laugh when they heard of it, and the Conventicles would rejoice together. MacKay would be sitting in his quarters at Elgin that night making his plans also, but not for flight, and hardly for fighting. When officers arrest an outlaw, it is not called a battle any more than when hounds run a fox to his lair. MacKay would be arranging how to trap him, anticipating his ways of escape, and stopping all the earths, so that say, to-morrow, he might be quietly taken. It would not be a surrender; it would be a capture, and he would be sent to Edinburgh in charge of half a dozen English dragoons, and tried at Edinburgh, and condemned for treason against King William––King William. They would execute him without mercy, and be only doing to him what he had done to the Whigs, and just as he had kept guard at Pollock’s execution, that new Cameronian Regiment, of which there was much talk, would keep guard at his. There would be little cause for precaution; no one need fear a rescue, for 227 the hillmen would be there in thousands with the other Whigs, to feast their eyes upon his shame, and cheer his death. He could not complain, for it would happen to him as it had to many of them, and what he had sown that would he reap. Would MacKay be laughing that night at Elgin, with his officers, and crying in his Puritanic cant, “Aha, aha, how is the enemy fallen and the mighty cast down! Where now is the boasting of his pride, where now is the persecutor of the saints?” No, far worse, MacKay would give orders in his cold, immovable manner, and treat the matter as of no account, as one who had never expected anything else from the beginning, and was only amazed at his opponent’s madness. That was the inner bitterness of it all; they had taken their sides fifteen years ago; MacKay had chosen wisely, and he had chosen foolishly, as the world would say. The conflict had been inevitable, and it was quite as inevitable that his would be the losing side. William saw what was coming afar off, so did MacKay; and it had all come to pass, year by year, act by act, and now MacKay was to give the last stroke. They had won, and they had been sure all the time they were going to win, and they would win with hardly an effort. He did not repent 228 of his loyalty, and he would not have done otherwise if he had had the choice over again. But their foresight, and their patience, and their capacity, and their thoroughness, and the madness of his own people, and their feebleness, and their cowardice, and their helplessness, infuriated him. “Curse MacKay and his master, and the whole crew of cold-blooded Whigs! But it is I and mine which are cursed.”

“Amen to the malediction on the Usurper and all his servants; it’s weel deserved, and may it sune be fulfilled, full measure and rinnin’ over, but for ony sake dinna curse yersel’, my lord, for it’s blessings ye’ve earned as a faithful servant o’ your king.” And Dundee turned round to find his faithful servant had arrived from home and had sought him out on the riverside.

“You took me by surprise, Jock, and startled me, for I knew not that any man was near. I thought that you of all men were at Dudhope, where I left you, to protect Lady Dundee and the young lord. Is aught wrong,” cried Dundee anxiously, “my wife and child, are they both well? Speak quickly.” For even then Dundee saw that Grimond was hesitating, and looked like a man who had to speak carefully. “Do not 229 tell me that MacKay has ordered the castle to be seized, and that the dragoons have insulted my family; this were an outrage on the laws of war. If they have done this thing I will avenge it before many days pass. Is that the news ye bring?” And Dundee gripped his servant’s shoulder and shook him with such violence that Grimond, a strongly built fellow, was almost thrown from his feet.

“Be quiet, Maister John, for I canna help callin’ ye that, and dinna work yoursel’ into a frenzy, for this is no like your ain sel’. Na, na, Dudhope is safe, and no a single dragoon, leastways a soldier, has been near it since ye left; whatever other mischief he may do, Colonel Livingstone, him that commands the cavalry ye ken, at Dundee, will no see ony harm come to my Lady Dundee. Have no fear on that concern, my lord.”

“You havena come for nought, Grimond, and I’m not expecting that ye have much good to tell. Good tidings do not come my way in these days. Is the lad well?” said Dundee anxiously, “for in him is all my hope.”

“It’s a gude hope then, my lord, for the bairn is juist bye-ordinary. I could see him growing every day, and never a complaint from his mouth except when he wants his 230 food. God be thankit there’s nothing wrong wi’ him, and it does my heart good to see that he is a rael Graham, a branch o’ the old tree; long may it stand in Scotland, and wide may its branches spread. If it be the will of Providence I would like to live till my auld een saw Lord Graham of Claverhouse, for that I’m supposing is his title, riding on the right hand of the Viscount of Dundee. And I would be a’ the better pleased if it was over the necks of the Whigs. My lord, ye will never be ashamed of your son.”

“Ye have said nothing of Lady Dundee’s health, surely she isna ill or anything befallen her. It was hard, Jock, for a man to leave his wife but a few weeks after his son was born. Yet she recovered quickly as becometh a strong and healthy woman, and when I left her she was in good heart and was content that I should go. There is nothing wrong with Lady Dundee, Jock?”

“Ye may set yir mind at rest aboot her ladyship, Maister John. She’s stronger than I’ve ever seen her, and I can say no more than that, nor have I ever marked her more active, baith by nicht and day, and in spite o’ her lord being so far awa and in sic peril, ye would never think she had an anxious thought. It’s amazin’ an’ ... very encouragin’ 231 to see her ladyship sae content an’ ... occupied. Ye need have nae concern aboot her bodily condeetion, an’ of course that’s a great matter.”

Dundee was so relieved to hear that his wife and child were well, and that Dudhope was safe, that he did not for the moment catch with the dubious tone of Grimond’s references to Lady Dundee, and indeed it struck no unaccustomed note. Grimond had all the virtues of a family retainer––utter forgetfulness of self, and absolute devotion to his master’s house, as well as a passionate, doglike affection for Dundee. But he had the defects of his qualities. It seems the inevitable disability of this faithfulness, that this kind of servant is jealous of any newcomer into the family, suspicious of the stranger’s ways, over-sensitive to the family interests, and ready at any moment to fight for the family’s cause. Grimond had done his best to prevent his master’s marriage with Jean Cochrane, and had never concealed his conviction that it was an act of madness; he had never been more than decently civil to his mistress, and there never had been any love lost between them. If she had been a smaller woman, Jean would have had him dismissed from her husband’s side, but being what she was herself, 232 proud and thoroughgoing, she respected him for his very prejudices, and his dislike of her she counted unto him for righteousness. Jean had made no effort to conciliate Grimond, for he was not the kind of watchdog to be won from his allegiance by a tempting morsel. She laughed with her husband over his watchfulness, and often said, “Ye may trust me anywhere, John, if ye leave Grimond in charge. If I wanted to do wrong I should not be able.” “Ye would be wise, Jean,” Graham would reply, “to keep your eye on Grimond if ye are minded to play a prank, for his bite is as quick as his bark.” They laughed together over this jest, for they trusted each other utterly, as they had good reason to do, but the day was at hand when that laughter was to be bitter in the mouth.

“Ye are like a cross-grained tyke which snarls at its master’s best friend through faithfulness to him. Ye never liked your mistress from the beginning, because ye thought she would not be loyal, but, man, ye know better now,” said Dundee kindly, “and it’s time ye were giving her a share o’ the love ye’ve always given me.”

“Never!” cried Grimond hotly. “And I canna bear that ye should treat this maitter as a jest. Many a faithful dog has been scolded––aye, 233 and maybe struck, by his maister when he had quicker ears than the foolish man, and was giving warning of danger.

“Ye think me, my lord, a silly and cankered auld haveril, and that my head is full of prejudices and fancies. Would to God that I were wrong. If I were, I would go down on my knees to her ladyship and ask her pardon and serve her like a dog all the days of my life; but, waes me, I’m ower richt. When my lady is loyal to you I’ll be loyal to her, but no an hour sooner, say ye as ye like, laugh ye as ye will. But my lady is false, and ye are deceived in your own home.”

“Do you know what you are saying, Grimond, and to whom you are speaking? We have carried this jest too far, and it is my blame, but ye may not again speak this way of your mistress in my presence. I know you mean nothing by it, and it is all your love of me and dislike of Covenanters that makes you jealous; but never again, Grimond, remember, or else, old servant though you be, you leave me that hour. It’s a madness with you; ye must learn to control it,” said Dundee sternly.

“It’s nae madness, my lord,” answered Grimond doggedly, “and has naethin’ to do with my lady being a Cochrane. Maybe I 234 would rather she had been a Graham or a Carnegie, but that was nae business o’ mine. Even if I didna like her, it’s no for a serving-man to complain o’ his mistress. I ken when to speak and when to hold my tongue, but there are things I canna see and forbear. My lord, it’s time you were at Dudhope, for the sake, o’ your honor.”

“Grimond,” said Dundee, and his words were as morsels of ice, “if it were any other man who spoke of my wife and dishonor in the same breath I would kill him where he stood; but ye are the oldest and faithfullest follower of our house. For the work ye have done and the risks ye have run I pardon you so far as to hear any excuse ye have to make for yourself; but make it plain and make it quick, for ye know I am not a man to be trifled with.”

“I will speak plainly, my lord, though they be the hardest words I have ever had to say. I ken the risk. It is not the first time I have taken my life in my hand for the Grahams and their good name. My suspicions were aroused by that little besom Kirsty, when I saw her ane day comin’ oot from the quarters of Colonel Livingstone, wha commands the dragoons at Dundee. I kent she could be doing nae good there, for she’s as full o’ mischief 235 as an egg is full o’ meat. So I wheeped up by the near road and met her coming up to the castle. When she saw me she hid a letter in her breast, and, question her as I like, I could get nothing from her but impudence. But it was plain to me that communication was passing between someone in Dudhope and the commander o’ William’s soldiers.”

“Go on,” said Dundee quietly.

“Putting two and two together, my lord, I watched in the orchard below the castle that nicht and the next, and on the next, when it was dark, a man muffled in a cloak came up the road from the town and waited below the apple trees, near where I was lying in the hollow among the grass. After a while a woman in a plaid so that ye couldna see her face came down from the direction of the castle. They drew away among the trees, so that I could only see that they were there, but couldna hear what they were saying. After a while, colloguing together, they parted, and I jaloused who the two were, but that nicht I could not be certain.”

“Go on,” said Dundee, “till you have finished.”

“Three nichts later they met again, and I crept a little nearer, and the moon coming out for a minute I saw their faces. It was her 236 ladyship and Colonel Livingstone. She was pleading wi’ him, and he was half yielding, half consenting. Her voice was so low I couldna catch her words, but I heard him say: ‘God knows ye have my heart; but my honor, my honor.’ ‘I will be content wi’ your heart,’ I heard her answer. ‘When will you be ready? For if Dundee hear of it, he will ride south night and day, tho’ the whole English army be in his road!’

“‘For eight days,’ said Livingstone, ‘I am engaged on duty and can do nothing, on the ninth I am at your service for ever.’ Then I saw him kiss her hand, and they parted. Within an hour I was riding north. Ye may shoot me if you please, but I have cleared my conscience.”

Dundee’s face was white as death, and his eyes glittered as when the light shines on steel. Twice he laid his hand upon his pistol, and twice withdrew it.

“If an angel from heaven told me that Lady Dundee was untrue I would not believe him, and you, you I take to be rather a devil from hell. Said Livingstone eight days? And two are passed. I was proposing to go south for other ends, and now I shall not fail to be there before that appointment. But it may be, Grimond, I shall have to kill you.”

Dundee was a man of many trials, and one on whom fortune seldom smiled; but the most cruel days of his life were the ride from Inverness by the Pass of Corryarrack to Blair Athole, and from Blair Athole by Perth to Dundee. He learned then, as many men have done in times of their distress, the horror of the night time and the blessing of the light. Had his mind not been affected by the universal treachery of the time, and the disappointments he had met on every side, till it seemed that every man except himself was hunting after his own interest, and no one, high or low, could be trusted, he had from the beginning treated Grimond’s story with contempt and made it a subject of jest. He would no more have doubted Jean’s honor than that of his mother. He would have known that Grimond never lied, and that he did not often drink, but he also would have been sure that even if it was Jean who met 238 Livingstone, that there was some good explanation, and he never would have allowed his thoughts to dwell upon the matter. If Jean had been told that Graham had been seen with a lady of the Court at Whitehall, she would have scorned to question him, and indeed she had often laughed at the snares certain frail beauties of that day had laid for him in London. For she knew him, and he also knew her. But he was sorely tried in spirit and driven half crazy by the disloyalty of his friends, and it is in those circumstances of morbid, unhealthy feeling that the seeds of suspicion find a root and grow, as the microbes settle upon susceptible and disordered organs of the body.

As it was, he was divided in his mind, and it was the alternation of dark and bright moods which made his agony. Spring had only reached the Highlands as he rode southwards, but its first touches had made everything winsome and beautiful. While patches of snow lingered on the higher hills, and glittered in the sunlight, the grass in the hollows between the heather was putting on the first greenness of the season, and the heather was sprouting bravely; the burns were full-bodied with the melting snow from the higher levels and rushing with a pleasant noise to join the 239 river. As he came down from the bare uplands at Dalnaspidal into the sheltered glen at Blair Castle, the trees made an arch of the most delicate emerald over his head, for the buds were beginning to open, and the wind blew gently upon his face. The sight of habitations as he came nearer to the Lowlands, the sound of the horses’ feet upon the road, the gayety of his band of troopers, the children playing before their humble cottages, the exhilarating air, and the hope of the season when winter was gone, told upon his heart and reËnforced him. The despair of the night before, when he tossed to and fro upon a wretched bed or paced up and down before the farmhouse door, imagining everything that was horrible, passed away as a nightmare. Was there ever such madness as that he, John Graham, should be doubting his wife, Jean Cochrane, whom he had won from the midst of his enemies, and who had left her mother and her mother’s house to be his bride? How brave she had been, how self-sacrificing, how uncomplaining, how proud in heart and high in spirit; she had given up the whole world for him; she was the bravest and purest of ladies. That his wife of those years of storm and the mother a few weeks ago of his child should forget her vows and 240 her love, and condescend to a base intrigue; that she should meet a lover in the orchard where they often used to walk, where the blossom would now be opening on the trees, that Livingstone, whom he knew and counted in a sense a friend, though he held King William’s commission now, and had not stood by the right side, should take the opportunity of his absence to seduce his wife! It was a hideous and incredible idea, some mad mistake which could be easily explained. Dundee, throwing off his black and brooding burden of thought, would touch his horse with the spur and gallop for a mile in gayety of heart and then ride on his way, singing some Cavalier song, till Grimond, who kept away from his master those days and rode among the troopers, would shake his head, and say to himself, “God grant he be not fey” (possessed). Dundee would continue in high spirits till the evening shadows began to fall, and then the other shadow would lengthen across his soul. The night before he met his wife he spent in Glamis Castle, and the grim, austere beauty of that ancient house affected his imagination. Up its winding stairs with their bare, stern walls men had gone in their armor, through the thickness of the outer walls secret stairs connected mysterious 241 chambers one with another. Strange deeds had been done in those low-roofed rooms with their dark carved furniture, and there were secret places in the castle where ghosts of the past had their habitation. Weird figures were said to flit through the castle at night, restless spirits which revisited the scene of former tragedies and crimes, and the room in which Graham slept was known to be haunted. Alas! he needed no troubled ancestor of the Strathmore house to visit him, for his own thoughts were sufficient torment, and through the brief summer night and then through the dawning light of the morning he threshed the question which gnawed his heart. Evil suggestions and suspicious remembrances of the past, which would have fled before the sunlight, surrounded him and looked out at him from the shadow with gibbering faces. Had he not been told that Jean laid traps for him in Paisley that she might secure the safety of her lover Pollock, and also of her kinsman, Sir John Cochrane? Had she not often spoken warmly of that Covenanting minister and expressed her bitter regret that her husband had compassed Pollock’s death? She had tried to keep him from attending the Convention, and of late days had often suggested that he had better 242 be at peace and not stir up the country. After all, can you take out of the life what is bred in the bone?––and Jean Cochrane was of a Covenanting stock, and her mother a very harridan of bigotry. Might there not have been some sense in the fear of his friends that he would no longer be loyal to the good cause, and was Jock Grimond’s grudge against his marriage mere stupidity and jealousy? Everyone was securing his safety and adjusting himself to the new regime; there was hardly a Lowland gentleman who had irretrievably pledged himself to King James, and as for the chiefs, they would fight for their own hand as they had always done, and could only be counted on for one thing, and that was securing plunder. Was not he alone, and would not he soon be either on the scaffold or an exile? The Whigs would soon be reigning in their glory over Scotland, and it would be well with everyone that had their password. If he were out of the way, would there not be a strong temptation for her to make terms with her family and buy security by loyalty to their side? No doubt she was a strong woman, but, after all, she was only a woman, and was she able to stand alone and live forsaken at Glenogilvie, with friends neither among Cavaliers nor Covenanters? 243 Could he blame her if she separated herself from a ruined cause and a discredited husband, for would she not be only doing what soldiers and courtiers had done, what everybody except himself was doing? Why should she, a young woman with life before her, tie herself up with a hopeless cause, and one who might be called commander-in-chief of James’s army, but who had nothing to show for it but a handful of reckless troopers and a few hundred Highland thieves, a man whom all sensible people would be regarding as a mad adventurer? Would it not be a stroke of wisdom––the Whigs were a cunning crew, and he recalled that Lord Dundonald was an adroit schemer––to buy the future for herself and her child by selling him and returning to her old allegiance? There was enough reality in this ghost to give it, as it were, a bodily shape, and Graham, who had been flinging himself about, struck out with his fist as if at flesh and blood.

“Damn you, begone, begone!”

For a while he lay quietly and made as though he would have slept. Then the ghosts began to gather around his bed again as if the Covenanters he had murdered had come from the other world and were having their day of vengeance. It must have been Jean 244 who met Livingstone in the orchard, and it must have been an assignation. There was no woman in Dudhope had her height and carriage, and the vision of her proud face that he had loved so well brought scalding tears to his eyes. For what purpose had she met Livingstone, if not to arrange some base surrender, if not to give information about him so that MacKay might find him more easily? Was it worse than that, if worse could be when all was black as hell? Livingstone had known her for years; it had been evident that he admired her; he was an attractive man of his kind. Nothing was more likely in that day, when unlawful love was not a shame, but a boast, than that he had been making his suit to Lady Dundee. Her husband was away, likely never to return; she was a young and handsome woman, and Livingstone had time upon his hands at Dundee. A month ago he had sworn that the virtue of his wife was unassailable as that of the Blessed Virgin; he would have sworn it two days ago as he rode through Killiecrankie; but now, with the brooding darkness round him and its awful shapes peopling the room, he was not sure of anything that was good and true. Had he not lived at Court, had he not known the great ladies, had not they 245 tried to seduce him, and flung themselves at his head? Was not Jean a woman like the rest, and why should his wife be faithful when every other woman of rank was an adulteress! This, then, was the end of it all, and he had suffered the last stroke of treachery, and the last stain of dishonor. How he had been befooled and bewitched; what an actress she had been, with a manner that would have deceived the wisest! What a stupid, blundering fool he had been! There are times, the black straits of life, when a man must either pray or curse. If he be a saint he will pray, but Dundee was not a saint, so he rose from his bed, and sweeping away the evil shapes from before him with his right arm, and then with his left, as one makes his road through high-standing corn that closes in behind him, he raged from side to side of the room in which the day was faintly breaking, while unaccustomed oaths poured from his mouth. One thing only remained for him, and at the thought peace began to come. He had planned weeks ago to visit Dundee again and give the chance to Livingstone’s dragoons to join him, for he had reason to believe that they were not unalterably loyal. He was on his way to Dundee now, and to-morrow he 246 would be there, but he cared little what the dragoons would do; he had other folk to deal with. If he found he had been betrayed at home, and by her who had lain on his breast, and by a man whom he had counted his friend, they should know the vengeance of the Grahams. “Both of them––both of them to hell, and then my work is done and I shall go to see them!”

It was characteristic of the man that, though he had no assistance from Grimond in the morning––for Jock dared not go near him––Dundee appeared in perfect order, even more carefully dressed than usual; but as he rode from the door of Glamis Castle through the beautiful domain of park and wood, Grimond was aghast at his pinched and drawn face and the gleam in his eye. “May the Lord hae mercy, but I doot sairly that he is aff his head, and that there will be wild work at Dudhope.” And while Grimond had all the imperturbable self-satisfaction and unshaken dourness of the Lowland Scot, and never on any occasion acknowledged that he could be wrong or changed his way, he almost wished that he had left this affair alone and had not meddled between his master and his master’s wife. It was again a fair and sunny day, when the freshness of 247 spring was feeling the first touch of summer, as Dundee and his men rode up the pass through the hills from Strathmore to Dundee. There were times when Graham would have breathed his horse at the highest point, from which you are able to look down upon the sea, and drunk in the pure, invigorating air, and gazed at the distant stretches of the ocean. But he had no time to lose that day; he had work to do without delay. With all his delirium––and Graham’s brain was hot, and every nerve tingling––he retained the instincts of a soldier, and just because he was so suspicious of his reception he took the more elaborate precautions. Before he entered the pass his scouts made sure that he would not be ambuscaded, for it might be that his approach was known, and that Livingstone, taking him at a disadvantage in the narrow way, by one happy stroke would complete his triumph. As he came near Dundee, he sent out a party to reconnoitre, while he remained with his troop to watch events. When the sound of firing was heard he knew that the garrison was on the alert, and that the town could only be taken by assault. The soldiers came galloping back with several wounded men, having left one dead. Livingstone was for the moment safe in his fastness, and it was 248 evident that the dragoons were not in a mind to desert their colors. By this time it would be known at Dudhope that he was near, and the sooner he arrived the more chance of finding his wife. It was possible that Livingstone had garrisoned Dudhope, and that if he rode forward alone he might be snared. But this risk he would take in the heat of his mind, and summoning Grimond with a stern gesture to his side, and ordering the soldiers to follow at a slight interval and to surround the castle, he galloped forward to the door. The place appeared to be deserted, but at last, in answer to his knocking, as he beat on the door with the hilt of his sword, it was opened by an old woman who seemed the only servant left, and who was driven speechless by her master’s unexpected appearance and his wild expression. For, although John Graham had been a stern as well as just and kind master, and although he had often been angry, and was never to be trifled with, no one had ever seen him before other than cool and calm, smooth-spoken and master of himself.

“What means it, Janet, or whatever be your name, that the door was barred and I kept standing outside my own house? What were ye doing, and who is within the walls? 249 Speak out, and quickly, or I will make you do it at your pain. Have the dragoons been here, and are there any hid in this place? Is my Lady Dundee in the castle, and if so, where is she?” And then, when the panic-stricken woman could not find intelligible words before the unwonted fury of her master, he pushed her aside and, rushing up the stair, tore open the door of the familiar room where Jean and he usually sat––to find that she was not there nor anywhere else in the castle, that his wife and the child were gone. With this confirmation of his worst fears, his fever left him suddenly, and he came to himself, so far as the action of his mind and the passion of his manner were concerned. Sending for Janet, he expressed his regret, with more than his usual courtesy, that he had spoken roughly to her and for the moment had frightened her. Something, he said, had vexed him, but now she must not be afraid, but must tell him some things that he wished to know. Had everything been going well at Dudhope since he left, and had her ladyship and my little lord been in good health? That was excellent. He hoped that the dragoons had not been troublesome or come about the castle? They had not? Well, that was satisfactory. Their commander, 250 Colonel Livingstone, perhaps had called to pay his respects to Lady Dundee, and render any kindness he could? No, never been seen at the castle? That was strange. Her ladyship––where had she gone, for she did not appear to be in the castle, nor her maid nor the other servants? Where were they all? Had her ladyship taken refuge in Dundee for safety in those troubled times? And as his master asked this question with studied calmness and the gentlest of accents, Grimond shuddered, for this was the heart of the matter, and there was murder in the answer. Not to Dundee––where then? To Glenogilvie, only last night in great haste, as if afraid of someone or something happening. Of whom, of what? But Janet did not know, and could only say that Lady Dundee and the household had formed a sudden plan and departed at nightfall for the old home of the Grahams. Whereat Dundee smiled, and, crossing to a window and looking down upon the town, said to himself: “A cunning trap. I was to be taken at Dundee, when in my hot haste, and thinking I had an easy capture, I rushed the town without precautions, as I might have done. While in quiet Glenogilvie my lady waited for his triumphant coming, victor and lover. It was a saving mercy, as 251 her people would say, that our scouts drew their fire and brought out the situation. They might have baited the trap at Dudhope had they been cleverer, and I been taken in my home with her by my side––but that would have been dangerous. Now it is left for me to see whether the town could be rushed, and I have the last joy of one good stroke at Colonel Livingstone. But if that be beyond my reach, as I fear it may, then haste me to Glenogilvie.”

During the day Graham hung about the outskirts of the town searching for some weak spot where he could make a successful entrance with his troopers. Before evening he was driven to the conclusion that an assault could only mean defeat and likely his own death, and he wished to live at least for another day. So when the sun was setting he rode away from Dudhope, and on the crest of the hill that overhangs Dundee, he turned him in his saddle and looked down on the castle from which he had ruled the town, and where he had spent many glad days with Jean. The shadows of evening were now gathering, and when he reached the home of his boyhood in secluded Glenogilvie the night had fallen. It was contrary to his pride to practise any tactics in his own country, and 252 they rode boldly to the door from which he had gone out and in so often in earlier, happier days. They had been keeping watch, he noticed, for lights shifted in the rooms as they came near, and almost as soon as he had crossed the threshold his wife came out from her room to greet him. He marked in that instant that, though she was startled to see him, and had not looked for him so soon, she showed no sign of confusion or of guilt. Against his will he admired the courage of her carriage and her dignity in what he judged a critical hour of her life. It was not their way to rush into one another’s arms, though there burned in them the hottest and fiercest passion of love. In presence of others they never gave themselves away, but carried themselves with a stately grace. “We heard you were on your way, my lord,” she simply said, “but I did not expect so quick a meeting. Have ye come from the north or from Perth? A messenger went to Lord Perth’s house with news of the happenings at Dundee, but doubtless he missed you.” She gave him her hand, over which he bent, and which he seemed to kiss, but did not. “We left Perth two days ago,” he replied, with a cold, clear voice, which did not quite hide the underlying emotion, “and we have this day 253 paid our visit to Dundee––to get a chill welcome and find Dudhope empty. It was a pity that we missed the messenger, Lady Dundee, who doubtless sought for us diligently, for if we had known where you were when we left Glamis this morning, it had been easy––aye, and in keeping with my mind––to turn aside and visit Glenogilvie.” They were still standing in the hall, and Jean had begun to realize that Dundee was changed, and that behind this cold courtesy some fire was burning. When they were alone she would, in other circumstances, have cast herself in the proud surrender of a strong woman’s love into his arms, and he would have kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her chin, and, last, her mouth; but at the sight of his eyes she stood apart, and straightening herself, Jean said: “What is the meaning of this look, John, and what ails you? Ye seem as if ye had suffered some cruel blow. Has aught gone wrong with you? Ye have come back in hot haste.”

“Yes, my Lady Dundee, something wrong with me, and maybe worse with you. I have come quicker than I intended, and have had a somewhat cold reception at Dundee, but I grant you that was not your blame, you had 254 doubtless prepared a warmer. Livingstone was the laggard.”

“You are angry, John, and I now understand the cause. It was not my blame, for what woman could do I did, and maybe more than becometh your wife, to win him over. He almost consented, and I declare to you that Livingstone is with us. I could have sworn two days ago that the regiment would have joined us and been waiting for you. But that determined Whig, Captain Balfour, discovered the plot, and I had a message yesterday afternoon that it was hopeless. So for fear of arrest I hurried to Glenogilvie, and tried to intercept your coming. Blame not me, for I could do no more––and what mean you by calling me ever by my title and not by my name, after our parting for so long and dangerous a time?”

“You are right, Jean Cochrane, and I will do you this justice, ye could not do more than meet him in the orchard and in the dark of the night. Yes, ye were both seen, and word was brought me to the north by a faithful messenger––I judge the only true heart left. That was fine doing and fine pleading, when he confessed that you had won his heart, but his honor was hindering him. Ye cannot deny the words, they are graven on 255 my heart like fire, and are burning it to the core. You, my wife, and whom I made my Lady Dundee, as if you had been a lowborn country lass.”

“You are unjust, my lord, shamefully and cruelly unjust. It was not a pleasant thing for me to do, and I hated myself in the stooping to do it, but there was no other way for it, since he dared not come in the daylight, and I dared not go to him. Now I wish to God I had never troubled myself and never lifted my little finger to accomplish this thing for the cause, since spies have been going and coming between Dudhope and the north. What I did, I did for you and King James, and if I had succeeded ye would have praised me and said that a woman’s wiles had won a regiment of horse. But because I have failed ye fling my poor effort in my face, and make me angry with myself that I ever tried to serve you––you who stand here reproaching me for my condescension.”

“Well acted, my lady, and a very cunning tale. So it was to serve me ye crept out at night disguised, and it was to win his heart for King James that ye spoke so tenderly? I never expected the day would come when John Graham of Claverhouse would call down blessings––aye, the richest benediction 256 of heaven––upon a Covenanter, but I pray God to bless Captain Balfour with all things that he desires in this world and in that which is to come. Because, though he knew not what he was doing, and might have served his own cause better by letting things run their course, he saved, at least in the eyes of the world, my honor, and averted the public shame of a treacherous wanton.”

As the words fell slowly and quietly from his lips, like drops of vitriol, Jean’s face reflected the rapid succession of emotions in her heart. She was startled as one not grasping the meaning of his words: she was horrified as their shameful charge emerged: she was stricken to the heart as the man she had loved from out of all the world called her by the vilest of all names a woman can hear. Then, being no gentle and timid young wife who could be crushed by a savage and unexpected blow and find her relief in a flood of tears, but a proud and determined woman with the blood of two ancient houses in her veins, after the briefest pause she struck back at Dundee, carrying herself at her full height, throwing back her head with an attitude of scorn, her face pale because intense feeling had called the blood back to the heart, and her eyes blazing with fury, as when the 257 forked lightning bursts from the cloud and shatters a house or strikes a living person dead. And it was like her that she spoke almost as quietly as Graham, neither shrinking nor trembling.

“This, then, is the cause of your strange carriage, Lord Dundee, which I noted on your coming, and tried to explain in a simple and honorable way, for I had no key to your mind, and have not known you for what you are till this night. So that was the base thing you have been imagining in your heart, as you rode through the North Country, and that was the spur that drave you home with such haste––to guard your honor as a husband, and to put to shame an adulterous wife? Pardon me if I was slow in catching your meaning, the charge has taken me somewhat by surprise.” And already, before her face, Dundee began to weaken and to shrink for the first time in his life.

“And you are the man whom I, Jean Cochrane, have loved alone of all men in the world, and for whose love I forsook my mother and my house, and became a stranger in the land! You are the husband whom I trusted utterly, for whom I was willing to make the last sacrifice of life, of whom I boasted in my heart, in whom I placed all my joy! I knew you 258 were a bigot for your cause; I knew you were cruel in the doing of your work; I knew you had a merciless ambition; I knew you had an unmanageable pride; I have not lain in your arms nor lived by your side, I have not heard you speak nor seen you act, without understanding how obstinate is the temper of your mind, and how fiery is your heart. For those faults I did not love you less, and of them I did not complain, for they were my own also. That you were incapable of trusting, that you could suspect your wife of dishonor, that you would be moved by the report of a spy, a baseborn peasant man, that you could offer the last gross, unpardonable insult to a virtuous woman, is what I never could have even imagined. The Covenanters called you by many evil names, and I did not believe them. I believe every one of them now––they did not tell half the truth. They called you persecutor and murderer, they forgot to call you what I now do. As when one strikes a cur with a whip, so to your fair, false face I call you liar and coward. Peace till I be done, and then you may kill me, for it were better I should not live, and if I had the sword of one of my kinsfolk here I would kill you where you stand. God in heaven, what an accusation! A wife of five 259 years, and a mother of only a few weeks, that she should sin with an honorable man who is her friend and her husband’s friend! Did Livingstone say, according to that dastard hiding in the wood, that his heart was with us? That was with our cause, and not with me. Did he say honor hindered him? That was not honor towards you, it was honor towards his colors. But honor is a strange word in your ears now, my lord. I have never thought of Livingstone more than any other man who has a good name and has never betrayed a trust. This night my heart is favorable to him, for I saw him in an agony about his honor, and I judge if he were a woman’s husband, and she was such a woman as I am before God this day, he would rather die than insult her.”

“Ye wished for some weapon wherewith to take a coward’s life. Here is my sword, Jean, and here is my heart. I would not be sorry to die, and I would rather take the last stroke from you than from my enemies. It is not worth while to live, for I have no friend, and soon shall have no possessions. My cause is forlorn, and my name is a byword, and now, by my own doing, I have lost my only love. Strike just here, and my blood will be an atonement to thee for my sin, and generations 260 unborn will bless the hand which slew Claverhouse.

“Ye hesitate for a moment”––for she was holding the sword by the hilt, and her face was still clouded with gloom, although the fire was dying down. “Then I will use that moment, not to ask your pardon, for I judge you are not a woman to forgive––and neither should I be in your place––but to explain. I shall not speak of my love for you, for that now ye will not believe, nor of my shame in having received those evil thoughts for a moment into my heart. I have never known the bitterness of shame before, but I would fain tell how it happened, that the remembrance of me be less black after we have parted forever. Had I been in my natural state it had been impossible for me to doubt thee, Jean, and if I had seen thee sin before mine eyes, I would have thought it was another. But my mind has been distraught through weariness of the body on the long rides, and nights without sleep as I lay a-planning, and the desertion of friends in whom I trusted, and the refusals of men of whom I expected loyalty, and the humiliating helplessness before William’s general, my old rival MacKay. I was almost mad. In the night-time, I think, I was mad altogether. 261 But I had always one comfort, like a single star shining in a dark sky, and that was the faithfulness of my wife. When a cloud obscured that solitary light, then a frenzy passed into my blood. I ceased to reason, and according to the measure of my love was my foolish, groundless hate.”

“Take back your sword, Dundee, for I am not now minded to use it. Five minutes ago it had been dangerous to give it me. If ye fall, it shall be by another hand than your wife’s, and in another place than your home. We have said words to one another this night which neither of us will lightly pardon, for we are not of the pardoning kind. I do not feel as I did: my anger has turned into sorrow; the idol of my idolatry is broken––my fair model of chivalry––and now I can only gather together the pieces. Even while I hated you I was loving you––this is the contradiction of a woman’s heart––and I knew that love of me had made you mad. Whatever happens, I will always remember that you loved me, but my dream has vanished––forever.”

They spent next day walking quietly in the glen, and the following morning he left for his last campaign. They said farewell alone, but after he was in the saddle Lady Dundee 262 lifted up the child for him to kiss––which was to die before the year was out. He turned as they were riding down the road and waved his plumed hat to his wife, where she stood, still holding the child in her arms. And that was the last Jean Cochrane saw of Claverhouse.