CHAPTER I

TREASON IN THE CAMP

Since the day Dundee rode away from Glenogilvie, after the scene with Jean, he was a man broken in heart, but he hid his private wound bravely, and gave himself with the fiercer energy to the king’s business. Hither and thither through the Highlands he raced, so that he was described in letters of that day as “skipping from one hill to another like wildfire, which at last will vanish of itself for want of fuel,” and “like an incendiary to inflame that cold country, yet he finds small encouragement.” Anything more pathetic than this last endeavor of Dundee, except it be his death, cannot be imagined. The clans were not devoured with devotion to King James, and were not the victims of guileless enthusiasm; they were not the heroes of romance depicted by Jacobite poets and story-tellers: they were half-starved, entirely ignorant, fond of fighting, but largely intent on stealing. If there was any chance 264 of a foray in which they could gather spoil, they were ready to fling themselves into the fray, but as soon as they had gained their end, they would make for the glens and leave their general in the lurch. Whether they would rise or not depended neither on the merits of William or James, but in the last issue upon their chiefs––and the chiefs were not easy to move. Some of them were hostile, and most of them lukewarm; and Dundee drank the cup of humiliation as he canvassed for his cause from door to door. By pleading, by arguing, by cajoling, by threatening, by promising and by bribing, he got together some two thousand men, more or less, and he had also the remains of his cavalry. His king had, as usual, left him to fend for himself, and sent him nothing but an incapable Irish officer called Cannon and some ragged Irish recruits, while MacKay was watching him and following him with a well-equipped force. Now and again the sun shone on him and he had glimpses of victory, driving MacKay for days before him, and keeping up communication with Livingstone, who had come from Dundee with his dragoons, and was playing the part of traitor in MacKay’s army––for Jean was still determined, with characteristic obstinacy and indifference 265 to suspicion, to reap the fruit of her negotiation with Livingstone. It seemed as if Dundee would at least gain a few troops of cavalry, which would be a great advantage to him and a disquieting event for MacKay’s army. But again the Fates were hostile, and misfortune dogged the Jacobite cause. MacKay got wind of the plot, Livingstone and his fellow-officers were arrested, and Jean’s scheming, with all its weary expedients and bitter cost, came to naught.

When Claverhouse, in the height of summer, started on his last campaign and descended on Blair Athole, he carried himself as one in the highest spirits and assured of triumph. He sent word everywhere that things were going well with the cause, and that the whole world was with him; he made no doubt of crushing MacKay if he opposed his march into the Lowlands, and of entering Edinburgh after another fashion than he had left it. He kept a bold front, and wrote in a buoyant style; but this was partly the pride of his house, and partly the tactics of a desperate leader. Though a bigot to his cause, Graham was not a madman. He was a thorough believer in the power of guerrilla troops, but he knew that in the end they would go down before the regulars. He 266 hoped, by availing himself of the hot courage of the clansmen, to deal a smashing blow at his old rival, but unless the Lowlands and the regulars joined James’s side, there was not the remotest chance of unseating William from his new throne. His words were high, but his heart was anxious, as he hurried with his little army to strike once at least for the king, and to make his last adventure. He had decided on the line of march to be taken next morning, and the place where he would join issue with MacKay, who was coming up from Perth with a small army of regular troops, many of whom were veterans. He had discussed the matter with his staff, and settled with the jealous and irascible chiefs as best he could the position they were to take on the battle-field, and he had fallen into a fit of gloomy meditation, when Grimond entered the room in Blair Castle, where Dundee had his headquarters for the night.

If Grimond, for pure malice or even for jealousy, had invented that unhappy interview between Lady Dundee and Livingstone, or if it had been shown that he had by a word perverted the conversation, then his master, who had sent many a Covenanter to death, because he loved his religion more than King James, would have shot even that faithful 267 servant without scruple and with satisfaction. But it was in keeping with the chivalry of Dundee––his sense of justice, his appreciation of loyalty, and his admiration for thoroughness––that he took no revenge for his own madness upon the unwitting cause thereof. During the brief stay at Glenogilvie, Grimond hid himself with discretion, so that neither his master nor mistress either saw or heard of him, and when Dundee left his home with his men, Grimond was not in the company. But as a dog which is not sure of a welcome from its master, or rather expects a blow and yet cannot leave him or let him go alone, will suddenly join him on the road by which he is making his journey, and will follow him distantly, but ever keep him in sight, so Jock was found one morning among the troopers. He kept as far from his master as he could and was careful not to obtrude himself or offer to resume a servant’s duty. Dundee’s face hardened at the sight of him, but he said no word, and Jock made no approach. With wise discretion he remained at a distance, and seemed anxious to be forgotten, but he had his own plan of operations. One morning Dundee found his bits and stirrups and the steel work of his horse furnishing polished and glittering as they had not been 268 since he rode to Glenogilvie, and he suspected that an old hand had been at work. Another day his cuirass was so well and carefully done, his uniform so perfectly brushed and laid out, and his lace cravat so skilfully arranged that he was certain Grimond was doing secret duty. Day by day the signs of his attention grew more frequent and visible, till at last one morning he appeared in person, and without remark began to assist his master with his arms. Nothing passed between them, and for weeks relations were very strained, but before the end Grimond knew that he had been forgiven for his superfluity of loyalty, and Dundee was thankful that, as the shadows settled upon his life blacker and deeper every day, one honest man was his companion, and would remain true when every fair-weather friend and false schemer had fled. One can make excuses for jealousy when it is another name for love; one may not quarrel with doggedness when it is another name for devotion. There are not too many people who have in them the heart to be faithful unto death, not too many who will place one’s interest before their own life. When one’s back is at the wall, and he is not sure even of his nearest, he will not despise or quarrel with the roughest or plainest man 269 who will stand by his side and share his lot, either of life or death. So Jock was reinstated without pardon asked or given, and with no reference to the tragedy of Glenogilvie, and Dundee knew that he had beside him a faithful and fearless watchdog of the tough old Scottish breed. As Grimond busied himself with preparations for the evening meal––among other dark suspicions he had taken into his head that Dundee might be poisoned––his master’s eye fell on him, and at the sight memory woke. John Graham recalled the days when Grimond received him from the charge of his nurse, and took him out upon the hills round Glenogilvie. How he taught him to catch trout with his own hands below the big stones of the burn, how he told him the names of the wild birds and their ways, how he gave him his first lesson in sport, how one day he saved his life, when he was about to be gored by an infuriated bull. All the kindness of this hard man and his thoughtfulness, all his faithfulness and unselfishness, touched Dundee’s heart––a heart capable of affection for a few, though it could never be called tender, and capable of sentiment, though rather that which is bound up with a cause than with a person.

“Jock,” said Graham, with a certain accent 270 of former days and kindly doings. Now, a person’s name may mean anything according to the way in which it is pronounced. It may be an accusation, a rebuke, an insult, a threat, or it may be an appeal, a thanksgiving, a benediction, a caress. And at the sound of the word, said more kindly than he had ever heard it, Grimond turned him round and looked at his master; his grim, lean, weather-beaten face relaxed and softened and grew almost gentle.

“Maister John, Maister John,” and suddenly he did a thing incredible for his undemonstrative, unsentimental, immovable granite nature. He knelt down beside Dundee, and seizing his hand, kissed it, while tears rolled down his cheeks. “My laddie, and my lord, baith o’ them, this is the best day o’ my life, for ye’ve forgiven me my terrible mistake, and my sin against my mistress. It’s sore against my grain to confess that I was wrang, for it’s been my infirmity to be always richt, but I sinned in this matter grievously, and micht have done what could never be put richt. But oh! my lord, it was a’ for love’s sake, for though I be only a serving man to the house of Graham, I dare to say I have been faithful. With neither wife nor child, I have nothing but you, my 271 lord, and I have nothing to live for but your weel. When ye were angry wi’ me I didna blame you, I coonted ye just, but ’twas to me as when the sun gaes behind the clouds. I cared neither to eat nor drink––had it not been for your sake, I didna care to live. But noo, when ye’ve buried the past and taken me back into your favor, I’m in the licht again, and I carena what happens to me, neither hardship nor death. Oh! my loved lord, will ye call me Jock again? When the severe and self-contained Lowland Scot takes fire, there is such strength of fuel in him, that he burns into white heat, and there is no quenching of the flame. And at that moment Graham understood, as he had only imagined before, the passion which can be concealed in the heart of a Scots retainer.

“Get up, Jock, you old fool and––my trusty friend.” Claverhouse concealed but poorly behind his banter the emotion of his heart, for Jock had found him in a lonely mood.

“You and me are no made for kneeling, except to our Maker and our king. Faith, I judge we are better at the striking. Aye, we are friends again, and shall be till the end, which I am thinking may not be far off. Ye gave me a bitter time, the like of which I 272 never had before, and beside which death, when it comes, will be welcome, but ye did it not in baseness, but in all honesty. It was our calamity. Life, Jock, is full o’ sic calamities, and we are all for the maist part at cross purposes. It seemeth to me as if we were travelling in the darkness, knowing not whether the man beside us be friend or foe, and often striking at our friends by mistake. But we must march on till the day breaks.

“It’ll break for us soon, at any rate,” went on Dundee, “for by to-morrow night the matter will be settled between General MacKay and me. Div ye mind, Jock, how I fain would have fought with him at The Hague, and he wouldna take my challenge?”

“Cowardly and cold-blooded Whig like the lave o’ them,” burst out Jock, in a strong reaction from his former mood of tenderness. “Leave him to look after himsel’, he micht have stood mair nor once thae last weeks and faced ye like a man, but would he? Na, na, he ran afore ye, and I doot sair whether he will give you a chance to-morrow.”

“Have no fear of that, Jock, we’ve waited long for our duel, but, ye may take my word for it, it will come off at Killiecrankie before the sun goes down again behind the hills. There will be a fair field and a free fight, and 273 the best man will win; and, Jock, I will not be sorry when the sun sets. What ails you, Jock, for your face is downcast? That didna used to be the way with you in the low country on the prospect of battle. Div ye mind Seneffe and the gap in the wall?”

“Fine, my lord, fine, and I’ll acknowledge that I’ve nae rooted objection in principle or in practice to fechtin’––that is, when it’s to serve a richt cause and there be a good chance o’ victory, to say nothing o’ profit. But a’ thing maun be fair and aboveboard, and I’m dootin’ whether that will be the case the mornin’. What I’m feared o’ is no war, but black murder.” And there was an earnestness in Grimond’s tone which arrested Dundee.

“My lord,” said Jock, in answer to the interrogation on his master’s face, “I came here to speak, if Providence gave me the chance, for aifter all that has happened, I didna consider your ear would be open to hear me. When a man has made as big a mistake as I have dune, and caused as muckle sorrow, it behooves him to walk softly, and this is pairt of his judgment that them he loves most may trust him least.

“Na, na, my lord,” for the face of Dundee was beginning again to blacken. “I’ve 274 no a word to say against her ladyship. I gather she has been doing what she can for the cause wi’ them slippery rascals o’ dragoons and their Laodicean commander, of whom I have my ain thoughts. I fear me, indeed, to say what I have found, and what I am suspecting, for ye hae reason to conclude that my head is full o’ plots, and that broodin’ ower treachery has made me daft.”

“What is it now, Jock?” in a tone between amusement and seriousness. “Ye havena found a letter from Lochiel to the Prince of Orange, offering to win the reward upon my head, or caught General MacKay, dressed in a ragged kilt, stealing about through the army? Out with it, and let us know the worst at once.”

“Ye are laughin’, Maister John, and I will not deny ye have justification. I wish to God I be as far frae the truth this time as I was last time, but there is some thin’ gaein’ on in the camp that bodes nae gude to yersel’, and through you to the cause. It was not for naethin’ I watched two of our new recruits for days, and heard a snap o’ their conversation yesterday on the march.”

“I’ll be bound, Jock, ye heard some wild talk, for I doubt our men are readier with an oath than a Psalm and a loose story than a 275 sermon. But we must just take them as they come––rough men for rough work, and desperate men for a wild adventure.”

“Gude knows, my ears are weel accustomed to the clatter of the camp, and it’s no a coarse word here or there would offend Jock Grimond. But the men I mean are of the other kind; they speak like gentlefolk, and micht, for the manner o’ them, sit wi’ her ladyship in Dudhope Castle.”

“Broken gentlemen, very likely, Jock. There have always been plenty in our ranks. Surely you are not going to make that a crime at this time of the day. If I had five hundred of that kidney behind me, I would drive MacKay––horse, foot and bits of artillery––like chaff before the wind. A gentleman makes a good trooper, and when he has nothing to lose, he’s the very devil to fight.”

“But that’s no a’ else. I wouldna have troubled you, my lord, but the two are aye the-gither, and keep in company like a pair o’ dogs poachin’. They have the look o’ men who are on their gaird, and are feared o’ bein’ caught by surprise. According to their story they had served with Livingstone’s dragoons, and had come over to us because they were for the good cause. But ain o’ Livingstone’s lads wha deserted at the same time, 276 and has naethin’ wrong wi’ him except that he belongs to Forfar and has a perpetual drouth, tells me that our twa friends were juist in and oot, no mair than a week wi’ the dragoons. My idea is that they went wi’ Livingstone to get to us. And what for––aye, what for?”

“For King James, I should say, and a bellyful of fighting,” said Dundee carelessly.

“Maybe ye’re richt, and if so, there’s no mischief done; and maybe ye’re wrang, and if so, there will be black trouble. At ony rate, I didna like the story, and I wasna taken wi’ the men. No that they’re bad-lookin’, but they’re after some ploy. Weel, they ride by themsel’s, and they camp by themsel’s, and they eat by themsel’s, and they sleep by themsel’s. So this midday, when we haltit, they made off to the bank o’ the river, and settled themsel’s ablow a tree, and by chance a burn ran into the river there wi’ a high bank on the side next them. Are ye listenin’, my lord?”

“Yes, yes,” said Dundee, whose thoughts had evidently been far away, and who was attaching little importance to Jock’s groundless fears. “Go on. So you did a bit of scouting, I suppose?”

“I did,” said Jock, with some pride, “and they never jaloused wha was lying close beside 277 them, like a tod (fox) in his hole. I’m no prepared to say that I could catch a’ their colloguing, but I got enough to set me thinkin’. Juist bits, but they could be pieced togither.”

“Well,” said Dundee, with more interest, “what were the bits?”

“The one asks the other where he keeps his pass. ‘Sown in the lining of my coat,’ says he. ‘Where’s yours?’ ‘In my boot,’ answers he, ‘the safest place.’ Who gave them the passes, thinks I to myself, and what are they hiding them for? So I cocks both my ears to hear the rest.”

“And what was that, Jock?” And Dundee now was paying close attention.

“For a while they spoke so low I could only hear, ‘This underhand work goes against my stomach.’ ‘Aha, my lad, so it’s underhand,’ says I in my hole. ‘It’s worth the doing,’ says the other, ‘and a big stroke of work if we succeed. It might be a throne one way or other.’ ‘Not to us,’ laughs the first. ‘No,’ says his friend, ‘but we’ll have our share.’ ‘This is no ordinary work,’ says I to mysel’, and I risked my ears out of the hole. ‘It’s no an army,’ says one o’ them, ‘but juist a rabble, and a’ depends on one man.’ ‘You’re right there,’ answers the other, ‘if he falls all is over.’ Then they said 278 something to one another I couldn’t catch, and then one stretched himself, as I took it by his kicking a stone into the river, and rose, saying, ‘By heaven! we’ll manage it.’ The other laughed as he rose too, and as they went away the last words I heard were, ‘The devil, Jack, is more likely to be our friend.’ Notice this, my lord, every word in the English tongue, as fine and smooth spoken as ye like. Where did they come from, and what are they after? Aye, and wha is to fall, that’s the question, my lord?”

Dundee started, for Jock’s story had unloosed a secret fear in his mind, which he had often banished, but which had been returning with great force. As a band holds together the sheaf of corn, so he alone kept King James’s army. Apart from him there was no cohesion, and apart from him there was no commander. With his death, not only would the forces disperse, but the cause of King James would be ended. If he were out of the way, William would have no other cause for anxiety, and he knew the determined and cold-blooded character of his former master. William had given him his chance, and he had not taken it. He would have no more scruple in assassinating his opponent than in brushing a fly off the table. 279 Instead of gathering an army and fighting him through the Highlands and Lowlands, just one stroke of a dirk or a pistol bullet and William is secure on his throne. “Jock may be right for once,” said Claverhouse to himself, “and, by heaven! if I am to fall, I had rather be shot in front than behind.” He wrote an order to the commander of the cavalry, and in fifteen minutes the two troopers were standing before him disarmed and guarded.

The moment Dundee looked at them he knew that Jock was correct in saying that they were not common soldiers, for they had the unmistakable manner of gentlemen, and as soon as they spoke he also knew that they were Englishmen. One was tall and fair, with honest blue eyes, which did not suggest treachery, the other was shorter and dark, with a more cautious and uncertain expression.

“For certain reasons, gentlemen,” said Dundee, with emphasis upon the word, “I desire by your leave to ask you one or two questions. If you will take my advice, you had better answer truthfully. I will not waste time about things I know. What brought you from Livingstone’s dragoons to us? why were ye so short a time with them? 280 and why did ye leave the English army? Tell no lies, I pray you. I can see that ye are soldiers and have been officers. Why are you with us in the guise of troopers?”

“You know so much, my lord,” said the taller man, with that outspoken candor which is so taking, “that I may as well tell you all. We have held commissions in the army, and are, I suppose, officers to-day, though they will be wondering where we are, and we should be shot if we were caught. You will excuse me giving our names, for they could not be easily kept. We belong to families which have ever been true to their king, and we came north to take a share in the good work. That is the only way that we could manage it, and we do not fancy it overmuch, but we have taken our lives in our hands for the adventure.”

“You are men of spirit, I can see,” said Dundee ironically, “but ye are wise men also, and have reduced your risks. Would you do me the favor of showing the passes with which you provided yourselves before leaving England? Save yourselves the trouble of––argument. One of you has got his pass in his coat, and the other in his boot. I’m sure you would not wish to be stripped.”

The shorter man colored with vexation and 281 then paled, but the other only laughed like a boy caught in a trick, and said, “There are quick eyes, or, more likely, quick ears, in this army, my lord.” Then, without more ado, they handed Lord Dundee the passes. “As I expected,” said Dundee, “to the officers of King William’s army, and to allow the bearers to go where they please, and signed by his Majesty’s secretary of state.” And Dundee looked at them with a mocking smile.

“Damn those passes!” said the spokesman with much geniality. “I always thought we should have destroyed them once we were safely through the other lines, but my friend declared they might help us afterwards in time of need.”

“And now, gentlemen, they are going to hang you, for shooting is too honorable for spies and, worse than spies, assassins, for,” concluded Dundee softly, “it was to shoot me you two loyal Cavaliers have come.”

The shorter man was about to protest, in hope of saving his life, but his comrade waved him to be silent, and for the last time took up the talk.

“We are caught in a pretty coil, my lord. Circumstances are against us, and we have nothing to put on the other side, except our word of honor as gentlemen. Neither my comrade nor I are going to plead for our 282 lives, though we don’t fancy being hung. But perhaps of your courtesy, if we write our names, you will allow a letter to go to General MacKay, and that canting Puritan will be vastly amused when he learns that he had hired us to assassinate my Lord Dundee. He will be more apt to consider our execution an act of judgment for joining the Malignants. We got our passes by trickery from Lord Nottingham, and they have tricked us, and, by the gods! the whole affair is a fine jest, except the hanging. I would rather it had been shooting, but I grant that if MacKay had sent us on such an errand, both he and we deserve to be hung.” And the Englishman shrugged his shoulders as one who had said his last word and accepted his fate.

He carried himself so bravely, with such an ingenuous countenance and honest speech, that Claverhouse was interested in the man, and the reference to MacKay arrested him in his purpose. They were not likely to have come on such an errand from MacKay’s camp without the English general knowing what they were about. Was MacKay the man to sanction a proceeding so cowardly and so contrary to the rules of war? Of all things in the world, was not this action the one his principles would most strongly condemn? Certainly their conversation by the 283 riverside had been suspicious, but then Grimond had made one hideous mistake before. It was possible that he had made another. Graham had insulted his loyal wife through Grimond’s blundering; it would be almost as bad if he put to an ignominious death two adventurous, blundering English Cavaliers. He ordered that the Englishmen should be kept under close arrest till next morning, and he sent the following letter by a swift messenger and under flag of truce to the general of the English forces.

Blair Castle, July 26, 1689.

To Major-General Hugh MacKay, Commanding the forces in the interests of the Prince of Orange.

Sir: It is years since we have met and many things have happened since, but I freely acknowledge that you have ever been a good soldier and one who would not condescend to dishonor. And this being my mind I crave your assistance in the following matter.

Two English officers have been arrested in disguise and carrying compromising passes; there is reason to believe that their errand was to assassinate me, and if this be the case they shall be hung early to-morrow morning.

Albeit we were rivals in the Low Country and will soon fight our duel to the death, I am loath to believe that this thing is true of you, and I will ask of you this last courtesy, for your sake and mine and that of the two Englishmen, that ye tell me the truth.

I salute you before we fight and I have the honor to be,

Your most obedient servant,

Dundee.

Upon the highest floor of Blair Castle there was a long and spacious apartment, like unto the gallery in Paisley Castle, where John Graham had been married to Jean Cochrane, and which to-day is the drawing-room. To this high place Claverhouse climbed from the room where he had examined the two Englishmen, and here he passed the last hours of daylight on the day before the battle of Killiecrankie. Seating himself at one of the windows, he looked out towards the west, through whose golden gates the sun had begun to enter. Beneath lay a widespreading meadow which reached to the Garry; beyond the river the ground began to rise, and in the distance were the hills covered with heather, with lakes of emerald amid the purple. There are two hours of the day when the soul of man is powerfully affected by the physical world in which we live, and in which, indeed, the things we see become transparent, like a 285 thin veil, and through them the things which are not seen stream in upon the soul. One is sunrise, when there is first a grayness in the east, and then the clouds begin to redden, and afterwards a joyful brightness heralds the appearing of the sun as he drives in rout the reluctant rearguard of the night. The most impressive moment is when all the high lands are bathed in soft, fresh, hopeful sunshine, but the glens are still lying in the cold and dank shadow, so that one may suddenly descend from a place of brightness, where he has been in the eye of the sun, to a land of gloom, which the sun has not yet reached. Sunrise quickens the power that has been sleeping, and calls a man in high hope to the labor of the day, for if there be darkness lingering in the glen, there is light on the lofty table-lands, and soon it will be shining everywhere, when the sun has reached his meridian. And it puts heart into a man to come over the hill and down through the hollows when the sun is rising, for though the woods be dark and chill, the traveller is sure of the inevitable victory of the light.

Yet more imperious and irresistible is the impression of sunset as Dundee saw the closing pageant of the day on the last evening of his life. When first he looked the green plain 286 was flooded with gentle light which turned into gold the brown, shaggy Highland cattle scattered among the grass, and made the river as it flashed out and in among the trees a chain of silver, and took the hardness from the jagged rocks that emerged from the sides of the hills. As the sun entered in between high banks of cloud, the light began to fade from the plain, and it touched the river no more; but above the clouds were glowing and reddening like a celestial army clad in scarlet and escorting home to his palace a victorious general. In a few minutes the sun has disappeared, and the red changes into violet and delicate, indescribable shades of green and blue, like the color of Nile water. Then there is a faint flicker, sudden and transient, from the city into which the sun has gone, and the day is over. As the monarch of the day withdraws, the queen of the night takes possession, and Claverhouse, leaning his chin upon his hand and gazing from the sadness of his eyes across the valley, saw the silver light, clear, beautiful, awful, flood the mountains and the level ground below, till the outstanding hills above, and the cattle which had lain down to rest in the meadow, were thrown out as in an etching, with exact and distinct outlines. 287 The day, with its morning promise, with its noontide heat, with its evening glory, was closed, completed and irrevocable. The night, in which no man can work, had come, and in the cold and merciless light thereof every man’s work was revealed and judged. The weird influence of the hour was upon the imagination of an impressionable man, and before him he saw the history of his life. It seemed only a year or so since he was a gay-hearted lad upon the Sidlaw hills, and yesterday since he made his first adventure in arms, with the army of France. Again he is sitting by the camp-fire in the Low Country, and crossing swords for the first time with Hugh MacKay, with whom he is to settle his warfare to-morrow. He is again pledging his loyalty to King James at Whitehall, whom he has done his best to serve, and who has been but a sorry master to him. His thoughts turn once more to the pleasaunce of Paisley Castle, he hears again the jingling of the horses’ bits as he pledges his troth to his bride. Across the moss-hags, where the horses plunge in the ooze and the mist encircles the troopers, he is hunting his Covenanting prey, and catches the fearless face of some peasant zealot as he falls pierced with bullets. Jean weaves her arms round 288 his neck, for once in her life a tender and fearful woman, pleading that he should withdraw from the fight and live quietly with her at home, and then, more like herself, she rages in the moment of his mad jealousy and her unquenchable anger. To-morrow he would submit to the final arbitrament of arms the cause for which he had lived, and for which the presentiment was upon him that he would die, and the quarrel begun between him and MacKay fifteen years ago, between the sides they represent centuries ago, would be settled. If the years had been given back to him to live again, he would not have had them otherwise. Destiny had settled for him his politics and his principles, for he could not leave the way in which Montrose had gone before, or be the comrade of Covenanting Whigs. It would have been a thing unnatural and impossible. And yet he feared that the future was with them and not with the Jacobites. He only did his part in arresting fanatical hillmen and executing the punishment of the law upon them, but he would have been glad that night if he had not been obliged to shoot John Brown of Priest Hill before his wife’s eyes, and keep guard at the scaffold from which Pollock went home to God. He had never loved any 289 other woman than Jean Cochrane, and they were well mated in their high temper of nature, but their marriage had been tempestuous, and he was haunted with vague misgivings. What light was given him he had followed, but there was little to show for his life. His king had failed him, his comrades had distrusted him, his nation hated him. His wife––had she forgiven him, and was she true-hearted to him still? Behind high words of loyalty and hope his heart had been sinking, and now it seemed to him in the light of eternal judgment, wherein there is justice but no charity, that his forty years had failed and were leaving behind them no lasting good to his house or to his land. The moonlight shining full upon Claverhouse shows many a line now on the smoothness of his fair girl face, and declares his hidden, inextinguishable sorrow, who all his days had been an actor in a tragedy. He had written to the chiefs that all the world was with him, but in his heart he knew that it was against him, and perhaps also God.

Once and again Grimond had come into the gallery to summon his master to rest, but seeing him absorbed in one of his reveries had quietly withdrawn. Full of anxiety, for he knows what the morrow will mean, that faithful 290 servitor at last came near and rustled to catch his master’s ear.

“Jock,” said Claverhouse, startling and rising to his feet, “is that you, man, coming to coax me to my bed as ye did lang syne, when ye received me first from my nurse’s hands? It’s getting late, and I am needing rest for to-morrow’s work, if I can get it. We have come to Armageddon, as the preachers would say, and mony things for mony days hang on the issue. All a man can do, Jock, is to walk in the road that was set before him from a laddie, and to complete the task laid to his hand. What will happen afterwards doesna concern him, so be it he is faithful. Where is my room? And, hark ye, Jock, waken me early, and be not far from me through the night, for I can trust you altogether. And there be not mony true.”

Worn out with a long day in the saddle, and the planning of the evening together with many anxieties, and the inward tumult of his mind, Claverhouse fell asleep. He was resting so quietly that Grimond, who had gone to the door to listen, was satisfied and lay down to catch an hour or two of sleep for himself, for he could waken at any hour he pleased, and knew that soon after daybreak he must be stirring. While he was nearby 291 heavy with sleep, his master, conscious or unconscious, according as one judges, was in the awful presence of the unseen. He woke suddenly, as if he had been called, and knew that someone was in the room, but also in the same instant that it was not Grimond or any visitor of flesh and blood. Twice had the wraith of the Grahams appeared to him, and always before a day of danger, but this time it was no sad, beautiful woman’s face, carrying upon its weird grace the sorrows of his line, but the figure of a man that loomed from the shadow. The moon had gone behind a cloud, and the room was so dark that he could only see that someone was there, but could not tell who it was or by what name he would be called. Then the moon struggled out from behind her covering, and sent a shaft of light into the gloomy chamber, with its dark draping and heavy carved furniture. With the coming of the light Claverhouse, who was not unaccustomed to ghostly sights, for they were his heritage, raised himself in bed, and knowing no fear looked steadily. What he saw thrown into relief against the shadows was the figure of a hillman of the west, and one that in an instant he knew. The Covenanter was dressed in rough homespun hodden gray, stained heavily with the 292 black of the peat holes in which he had been hiding, and torn here and there where the rocks had caught him as he was crawling for shelter. Of middle age, with hair hanging over his ears and beard uncared for, his face bore all the signs of hunger and suffering, as of one who had wanted right food and warmth and every comfort of life for months on end. In his eyes glowed the fire of an intense and honest, but fierce and narrow piety, and with that expression was mingled another, not of anger nor of sorrow, but of reproach, of judgment and of sombre triumph. His hands were strapped in front of him with a stirrup leather, and his head was bare. As the moon shone more clearly, Claverhouse saw other stains than those of peat upon his chest, and while he looked the red blood seemed to rise from wounds that pierced his heart and lungs, it flowed out again in a trickling stream, and dripped upon the whiteness of his hands. More awful still, there was a wound in his forehead, and part of his head was shattered. The scene had never been absent long from Claverhouse’s memory, and now he reacted it again. How this man had been caught after a long pursuit, upon the moor, how he had stood bold and unrepentant before the man 293 that had power of life and death over him, how he refused to take the oath of loyalty to the king, how he had been shot dead before his cottage, and how his wife had been spectator of her husband’s death.

“Ye have not forgot me, John Graham of Claverhouse, nor the deed which ye did at Priest Hill in the West Country. I am John Brown, whom ye caused to be slain for the faith of the saints and their testimony, and whom ye set free from the bondage of man forever. Behold, I have washed my robes and made them white in better blood than this, but I am sent in the garment o’ earth, sair stained wi’ its defilement, and in my ain unworthy blude, that ye may ken me and believe that I am sent.”

“What I did was according to law,” answered Claverhouse, unshaken by the sight, “and in the fulfilling of my commission, though God knows I loved not the work, and have oftentimes regretted thy killing. For that and all the deeds of this life I shall answer to my judge and not to man. What wilt thou have with me, what hast thou to do with me? Had it been the other way and I had fallen at Drumclog, I had not troubled thee or any of thy kind.”

“Nor had I been minded or allowed to 294 visit thee, John Graham, if I had fallen in fair fight, contending for Christ’s crown and the liberty of the Scots Kirk, but these wounds upon my head and breast speak not of war, but of murder. Because thou didst murder Christ’s confessors, and the souls of the martyrs cry from beneath the altar, I am come to show thee things which are to be and the doing of Him who saith, ‘I will avenge.’ Ye have often said go, and he goeth, and come and he cometh, but this nicht ye will come with me, and see things that will shake even thy bold heart.” And so in vision they went.

Claverhouse was standing in a country kirkyard, and at the hour of sunset. Round him were ancient graves with stones whose inscriptions had been worn away by rough weather, and upon which the grass was growing rank. They were the resting-places of past generations whose descendants had died out, and whose names were forgotten in the land where once they may have been mighty people. Before him was a burying-place he knew, for it belonged to his house. There lay his father, and there he had laid his mother, the Lady Magdalene Graham, to rest, taken as he often thought from the evil to come. The ground had been stirred again, and there 295 was another grave. It was of tiny size, not that of a man or woman, but of a child, and one that had died in its infancy. It was carefully tended, as if the mother still lived and had not yet forgotten her child. At the sight of it Claverhouse turned to the figure by his side.

“Ye mean not–––”

“Read,” said the Covenanter, “for the writing surely is plain.” And this is what Claverhouse saw:

“JAMES GRAHAME,
Only son and child of my Lord Dundie.
Aged eight months.”

“Ye longed for him and ye were proud of him, and if the sword of the righteous should slay thee, ye boasted in your heart that there was a man-child to continue your line. But there shall be none, and thine evil house shall die from out the land, like the house of Ahab, the son of Omri, who persecuted the saints. Fathers have seen their sons’ heads hung above the West Port to bleach in the sun for the sake of the Covenant, and mothers have wept for them who languished in the dungeon of the Bass and wearied for death. This is the cup ye are drinking this night before the time, for, behold, 296 thou hast harried many homes, but thy house shall be left unto thee desolate.”

For a brief space Claverhouse bent his head, for he seemed to feel the child in his arms, as he had held him before leaving Glenogilvie. Then he rallied his manhood, who had never been given to quail before the hardest strokes of fortune.

“God rest his innocent soul, if this be his lot; but I live and with me my house.”

“Yea, thou livest,” said the shade, “and it has been a stumbling-block to many that thou wert spared so long, but the day of vengeance is at hand. Come again with me.”

Claverhouse finds himself now on a plain with the hills above and a river beneath and an ancient house close at hand, and he knows that this is the battle-field of to-morrow. They are standing together on a mound which rises out of a garden, and on the grass the body of a man is lying. A cloth covers his face, but by the uniform and arms Claverhouse knows that it is that of an officer of rank, and one that has belonged to his own regiment of horse. A dint upon the cuirass and the sight of the sword by his side catch his eye and he shudders.

“This––do I see myself?”

“Yes, thou seest thyself lying low as the 297 humblest man and weaker now than the poorest of God’s people thou didst mock.”

“It is not other than I expected, nor does this make me afraid, and I judge thou art a lying spirit, for I see no wound. Lift up the cloth. Nor any mark upon my face. I had not died for nothing.”

“Nay, thou hadst been ready to die in the heat of battle facing thy foe, for there has ever been in thee a bold heart, but thy wound is not in front as mine is. See ye, Claverhouse, thou hast been killed from behind.” And Claverhouse saw where the blood, escaping from a wound near the armpit, had stained the grass. “Aye, some one of thine own and riding near beside thee found that place, and as thou didst raise thine arm to call thy soldiers to the slaughter of them who are contending for the right, thou wast cunningly stricken unto death. By a coward’s blow thou hast fallen, O valiant man, and there will be none to mourn thy doom, for thou hast been a man of blood from thy youth up, even unto this day.”

“Thou liest there, and art a false spirit. It may be that your assassins are in my army, and that I may have the fate of the good archbishop whom the saints slew in cold blood and before his daughter’s eyes. But if I fall 298 I shall be mourned deep and long by one who was of your faith, and had her name in your Covenant, but whose heart I won like goodly spoil taken from the mighty. If I die by the sword of my Lady Cochrane’s men, her daughter will keep my grave green with her tears. If, living, I have been loved by one strong woman, and after I am dead am mourned by her, I have not lived in vain.”

“Sayest thou,” replied the shadowy figure, with triumphant scorn. “That was a pretty catch-word to be repeated over the wine cup at the drinking of my lady’s health. Verily thou didst deceive a daughter of the godly, and she was willing to be caught in the snare of thy fair face and soft words. Judge ye whether the child who breaks the bond of the Covenant and turns against the mother who bore her, is likely to be a true wife or a faithful widow. Again will I lift the veil, and thou wilt see with thine own eyes the things which are going to be, for as thou hast shown no mercy, mercy will not be shown to thee. Dost thou remember this place?”

Claverhouse is again within the gallery of Paisley Castle, and he is looking upon a marriage service. Before him are the people of five years ago, except that now young Lord Cochrane is Earl of Dundonald, and is giving 299 away the bride, and my Lady Cochrane is not there either to bless or to ban. For a while he cannot see the faces of the bride or bridegroom, nor tell what they are, save that he is a soldier, and she is tall and proud of carriage.

“My marriage day!” exclaimed Claverhouse, his defiant note softening into tenderness, and the underlying sorrow rising into joy. “For this vision at least I bless thee, spirit, whoever thou mayest be, Brown or any other. That was the day of all my life, and I am ready now or any time in this world or the other to have it over again and pledge my troth to my one and only love, to my gallant lady and sweetheart, Jean.”

“Thou wilt not be asked to take thy marriage vow again, Claverhouse, nor would thy presence be acceptable on this day. It is the wedding of my Lady Viscountess Dundee, but be not too sure that thou art the bridegroom. She that broke lightly the Covenant with her living heavenly bridegroom, will have little scruple in breaking the bond to a dead earthly bridegroom. Thy Jean hath found another husband.”

From the faces of the bride and bridegroom the mysterious shadow, which hides the future from the present in mercy to us 300 all, lifted. It was Jean as majestic and as youthful as in the days when he wooed her in the pleasaunce, with her golden hair glittering as before in the sunshine, and the love-light again in her eye. And beside her, oh! fickleness of a woman’s heart, oh! irony of life, oh! cruelty to the most faithful passion, Colonel Livingstone, now my Lord Kilsyth. And an expression of fierce satisfaction lit up the Covenanter’s ghastly face.

“This then was thy revenge, Jean, for the insult I offered at Glenogilvie, and I was right in my fear that thy love was shattered. Be it so,” said Claverhouse, “I believe that thou wast loyal while I lived, and now, while I may have hoped other things of thee, I will not grudge thee in thy loneliness peace and protection. When this heart of mine, which ever beat for thee, lies cold in the grave, and my hair, that thou didst caress, has mingled with the dust, may joy be with thee, Jean, and God’s sunshine ever rest upon thy golden crown. Thou didst think, servant of the devil, to damn my soul in the black depths of jealousy and hatred, as once I damned myself, but I have escaped, and I defy thee. Do as thou pleasest, thou canst not break my spirit or make me bend. Hast thou other visions?”

“One more,” said the spirit, “and I have done with thee, proud and unrepentant sinner.”

Before Claverhouse is a room in which there has been some sudden disaster, for the roof has fallen and buried in its ruins a bed whereon someone had been sleeping, and a cradle in which some child had been lying. In the foreground is a coffin covered by a pall.

“She was called before her judge without warning, prepared or unprepared, and thou hadst better see her for the last time ere she goes to the place of the dead.” And then the cloth being lifted, Claverhouse looked on the face of his wife, with her infant child, not his, but Kilsyth’s, lying at her feet. There was no abatement in the splendor of her hair, nor the pride of her countenance; the flush was still upon her cheek, and though her eyes were closed there was courage in the set of her lips. By an unexpected blow she had been stricken and perished, but in the fullness of her magnificent womanhood, and undismayed. Lying there she seemed to defy death, and her mother’s curse, which had come true at last.

“So thou also art to be cut off in the midst of thy days, Jean. Better this way both for 302 you and me, than to grow old and become feeble, and be carried to and fro, and be despised. We were born to rule and not to serve, to conquer and not to yield, to persecute if need be, but not to be persecuted. Kilsyth loved thee, it was not his blame, who would not? He did his best to please thee. Mayhap it was not much he could do, but that was not his blame. He was thy husband for awhile, but I am thy man forever. Thou art mine and I am thine, for we are of the same creed and temper. I, John Graham of Claverhouse, and not Kilsyth, will claim thee on the judgment day, and thou shalt come with me, as the eagle follows her mate; together we shall go to Heaven or to Hell, for we are one. Slain we may be, Jean, but conquered never. We have lived, we have loved, and neither in life or death can anyone make us afraid.”

Outside the trumpets sounded and Claverhouse awoke, for the visions of the night had passed and the light of the morning was pouring into his room.

It is written in an ancient book “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,” and with the brief darkness of the summer night passed the shadow from Claverhouse’s soul. According, also, to the brightness and freshness of the early sunshine was his high hope on the eventful day, which was to decide both the fate of his king and of himself. The powers of darkness had attacked him on every side, appealing to his fear and to his faith, to his love and to his hate, to his pride and to his jealousy, to see whether they could not shake his constancy and break his spirit. They had failed at every assault, and he had conquered; he had risen above his ghostly enemies and above himself, and now, having stood fast against principalities and powers of the other world, he was convinced that his earthly enemies would be driven before him as chaff before the wind. He knew exactly what MacKay 304 and his army could do, and what he and his army could, in the place of issue, where, by the mercy of God, Who surely was on the side of His anointed, the battle would be fought. What would avail MacKay’s parade-ground tactics and all the lessons of books, and what would avail the drilling and the manoeuvring of his hired automatons in the pass of Killiecrankie, with its wooded banks and swift running river, and narrow gorge and surrounding hills? This was no level plain for wheeling right and wheeling left, for bombarding with artillery and flanking by masses of cavalry. Claverhouse remembers the morning of the battle of Seneffe, when he rode with Carleton and longed to be on the hills with a body of Highlanders, and have the chance of taking by surprise the lumbering army of the Prince of Orange and sweeping it away by one headlong charge. The day for this onslaught had come, and by an irony, or felicity, of Providence, he has the troops he had longed for and his rival has the inert and helpless regulars. News had come that MacKay was marching with phlegmatic steadiness and perfect confidence into the trap, and going to place himself at the greatest disadvantage for his kind of army. The Lord was giving the Whigs into his hand, 305 and they would fall before the sun set, as a prey unto his sword. The passion of battle was in his blood, and the laurels of victory were within his reach. Graham forgot his bitter disappointments and cowardly friends, the weary journeys and worse anxieties of the past weeks, the cunning cautiousness of the chiefs and their maddening jealousies. Even the pitiable scene at Glenogilvie and his gnawing vain regret faded for the moment from his memory and from his heart. If the Lowlands had been cold as death to the good cause, the Highlands had at last taken fire; if he had not one-tenth the army he should have commanded, had every Highlander shared his loyalty to the ancient line, he had sufficient for the day’s work. If he had spoken in vain to the king at Whitehall and miserably failed to put some spirit into his timid mind, and been outvoted at the Convention, and been driven from Edinburgh by Covenanting assassins and hunted like a brigand by MacKay’s troops, his day had now come. He was to taste for the first time the glorious cup of victory. He had not been so glad or confident since his marriage day, when he snatched his bride from the fastness of his enemy, and as Grimond helped him to arm, and gave the last touches to his martial 306 dress, he jested merrily with that solemn servitor, and sang aloud to Grimond’s vast dismay, who held the good Scottish faith that if you be quiet Providence may leave you alone, but if you show any sign of triumph it will be an irresistible temptation to the unseen powers.

“I’m judging my lord, that we’ll win the day, and that it will be a crownin’ victory. I would like fine to see MacKay’s army tumble in are great heap into the Garry, with their general on the top o’ them. I’m expectin’ to see ye ride into Edinburgh at the head o’ the clans, and the Duke o’ Gordon come oot frae the castle to greet you, as the king’s commander-in-chief, and a’ Scotland lyin’ at yir mercy. But for ony sake be cautious, Maister John, and dinna mak a noise, it’s juist temptin’ Providence, an’ the Lord forgie me for sayin’ it, I never saw a hicht withoot a howe. I’m no wantin’ you to be there afore the day is done. Dinna sing thae rantin’ camp songs, and abune a’ dinna whistle till a’ things be settled; at ony rate, it’s no canny.”

“Was there ever such a solemn face and cautious-spoken fellow living as you, Jock Grimond, though I’ve seen you take your glass, and unless my ears played me false, sing 307 a song, too, round the camp-fire in days past. But I know the superstition that is in you and all your breed of Lowland Scots. Whether ye be Covenanters or Cavaliers, ye are all tarred with the same stick. Do ye really think, Jock, that the Almighty sits watching us, like a poor, jealous, cankered Whig minister, and if a bit of good fortune comes our way and our hearts are lifted, that He’s ready to strike for pure bad temper? But there’s no use arguing with you, for you’re set in your own opinions. But I’ll tell you what to do––sing the dreariest Psalm ye can find to the longest Cameronian tune. That will keep things right, and ward off judgment, for the blood in my veins is dancing, Jock, and the day of my life has come.”

Claverhouse went out from his room to confer with the chiefs and his officers about the plan of operation, “like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race.” Grimond, as he watched him go, shook his head and said to himself, “The last time I heard a Covenanting tune was at Drumclog, and it’s no a cheerfu’ remembrance. May God preserve him, for in John Graham is all our hope and a’ my love.”

Through the morning of the decisive day 308 the omens continued favorable, and the sun still shone on Claverhouse’s heart. As a rule, a war council of Highland chiefs was a babel and a battle, when their jealous pride and traditional rivalry rose to fever height. They were often more anxious to settle standing quarrels with one another than to join issue with the enemy; they would not draw a sword if their pride had in any way been touched, and battles were lost because a clan had been offended. Jacobite councils were also cursed by the self-seeking and insubordination of officers, who were not under the iron discipline of a regular army, and owing to the absence of the central authorities, with a king beyond the water, were apt to fight for their own hand. Dundee had known trouble, and had in his day required more self-restraint than nature had given him, and if there had been division among the chiefs that day, he would have fallen into despair; but he had never seen such harmony. They were of one mind that there could not be a ground more favorable than Killiecrankie, and that they should offer battle to MacKay before the day closed. They approved of the line of march which Dundee had laid out, and the chiefs, wonderful to say, raised no objection to the arrangement of the clans in the fighting line, 309 even although the MacDonalds were placed on the left, which was not a situation that proud clan greatly fancied. The morning was still young when the Jacobite army left their camping ground in the valley north of Blair Castle, and, climbing the hillside, passed Lude, till they reached a ridge which ran down from the high country on their left to the narrow pass through which the Garry ran. Along this rising ground, with a plateau of open ground before them, fringed with wood, Dundee drew up his army, while below MacKay arranged his troops, whom he had hastily extricated from the dangerous and helpless confinement of the pass. During the day they faced one another, the Jacobites on their high ground, William’s troops on the level ground below––two characteristic armies of Highlanders and Lowlanders, met to settle a quarrel older than James and William, and which would last, under different conditions and other names, centuries after the grass had grown on the battle-field of Killiecrankie and Dundee been laid to his last rest in the ancient kirkyard of Blair. Had Dundee considered only his own impetuous feelings, and given effect to the fire that was burning him, he would have instantly launched his force at MacKay. He 310 was, however, determined that day, keen though he was, to run no needless risks nor to give any advantage to the enemy. The Highlanders were like hounds held in the leash, and it was a question of time when they must be let go. He would keep them if he could, till the sun had begun to set and its light was behind them and on the face of MacKay’s army.

During this period the messenger came back with an answer to the despatch which Dundee had sent to MacKay the night before. He had found William’s general at Pitlochry, as he was approaching the pass of Killiecrankie, and, not without difficulty and some danger, had presented his letter.

“This man, sir, surrendered himself late last night to my Lord Belhaven, who was bivouacking in the pass which is ahead,” said an English aide-de-camp to General MacKay, “and his lordship, from what I am told, was doubtful whether he should not have shot him as a spy, but seeing he had some kind of letter addressed to you, sir, he sent him on under guard. It may be that it contains terms of surrender, and at any rate it will, I take it, be your desire that the man be kept a prisoner.”

“You may take my word for it, Major 311 Lovel,” said young Cameron of Lochiel, who, according to the curious confusion of that day, was with MacKay, while his father was with Dundee, “and my oath also, if that adds anything to my word, that whatever be in the letter, there will be no word of surrender. Lord Dundee will fight as sure as we are living men, and I only pray we may not be the losers. Ye be not wise to laugh,” added he hotly, “and ye would not if ye had ever seen the Cameron’s charge.”

“Peace, gentlemen, we are not here to quarrel with one another,” said General MacKay. “Hand me the letter, and do the messenger no ill till we see its contents.”

As he read his cheek flushed for a moment, and he made an impatient gesture with his hand, as one repudiating the shameful accusation, and then he spoke with his usual composure.

“You are right,” he said, addressing Cameron, who was on his staff, “in thinking that Lord Dundee is ready for the fight. I had expected nothing else from him, for I knew him of old, the bigotry of his principles, and the courage of his heart. We could never be else than foes, but I wish to say, whatever happens before the day is done, that I count 312 him a brave and honorable gentleman, as it pleases me to know he counts me also.

“This letter”––and MacKay threw it with irritation on the table of the room in which he had taken his morning meal, “is from Dundee explaining that two English officers have been arrested, who were serving as privates in his cavalry, and who are suspected of being sent by us to assassinate him. If no answer is sent back they will be hung at once, but if the charge is denied, they will be released, which, I take it, gentlemen, is merciful and generous conduct.

“I will write a letter with my own hand and clear our honor from this foul slander. Spying is allowed in war, though I have never liked it, and the spy need deserve no mercy, but assassination is unworthy of any soldier, and a work of the devil, of which I humbly trust I am incapable, and also my king. Give this letter”––when he had written and sealed it––“to the messenger, Major Lovel, and see that he has a safe conduct through our army, and past our outposts.” Lovel saluted and left the room, but outside he laughed, and said to himself, “Very likely it’s true all the same, and a quick and useful way of ending the war. When Claverhouse dies the rebellion dies, too, and there’s a text 313 somewhere which runs like this, ‘It is expedient that one man should die than all the people.’ I wonder who those fellows are, and if they’ll manage it, and what they’re going to get. They have the devil’s luck in this affair, for, of course, MacKay would be told nothing about it; he’s the piousest officer in the English army.”

Dundee received MacKay’s letter during the long wait before the battle, and this is what he read:

To My Lord Viscount Dundee, Commanding the forces raised in the interest of James Stuart.

My Lord: It gives me satisfaction that altho’ words once passed between us, and there be a far greater difference to-day, you have not believed that I was art and part in so base a work as assassination, and I hereby on my word of honor as an officer, and as a Christian, declare that I know nothing of the two men who are under arrest in your camp. So far as I am concerned their blood should not be shed, nor any evil befall them.

Before this letter reaches your hand we shall be arrayed against one another in order of battle, and though arms be my profession, I am filled with sorrow as I think that the conflict to-day will be between men of the same nation, and sometimes of the same family, for it seemeth to me as if brother will be slaying brother.

I fear that it is too late to avert battle and I have no authority to offer any terms of settlement to you and those that are with you. Unto God belongs the issue, and in His hands I leave it. We are divided by faith, and now also 314 by loyalty, but if any evil befel your person I pray you to believe that it would give me no satisfaction, and I beg that ye be not angry with me nor regard me with contempt if I send you as I now do the prayer which, as a believer in our common Lord I have drawn up for the use of our army. It may be the last communication that shall pass between us.

I have the honor to be,

Your very obedient servant,

Hugh MacKay.
Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty’s Forces.

And this was the prayer, surely the most remarkable ever published by a general of the British army:

O Almighty King of Kings, and Lord of Hosts, which by Thy Angels thereunto appointed, dost minister both War and Peace; Thou rulest and commandest all things, and sittest in the throne judging right; And, therefore, we make our Addresses to Thy Divine Majesty in this our necessity, that Thou wouldst take us and our Cause into Thine Own hand and judge between us and our Enemies. Stir up Thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us, for Thou givest not always the Battle to the strong, but canst save by Many or Few. O let not our sins now cry against us for vengeance, but hear us Thy poor servants, begging mercy, and imploring Thy help, and that Thou wouldst be a defence for us against the Enemy. Make it appear, that Thou art our Saviour, and Mighty Deliverer, through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Dundee ordered the English officers to be brought before him, and for thirty seconds 315 he looked at them without speaking, as if he were searching their thoughts and estimating their character. During this scrutiny the shorter man looked sullen and defiant, as one prepared for the worst, but the other was as careless and gay as ever, with the expression either of one who was sure of a favorable issue, or of one who took life or death as a part of the game.

“If I tell you, gentlemen, that your general refuses to clear you from this charge, have ye anything to say before ye die?”

“Nothing,” said their spokesman, with a light laugh, “except that we would take more kindly to a bullet than a rope. ’Tis a soldier’s fancy, my lord, but I fear me ye will not humor it; perhaps ye will even say we have not deserved it.”

When Dundee turned to the other, who had not yet spoken, this was all he got:

“My lord, that it be quickly, and that no mention be made of our names. It was an adventure, and it has ended badly.”

“Gentlemen, whoever ye may be, and that I do not know, and whatever ye may be about, and of that also I am not sure, I have watched you closely, and I freely grant that ye are both brave men. Each in his own way, and each to be trusted by his own cause, though 316 there be one of you I would trust rather than the other.

“I have this further to say, that General MacKay declares that, so far as he knows, ye are innocent of the foul crime of which we suspected you. I might still keep you in arrest, and it were perhaps wiser to do so; but I have myself suffered greatly through mistrusting those who were true and honorable, and I would not wish to let the shadow of disgrace lie upon you, if indeed ye be honest Cavaliers. You have your liberty, gentlemen, to return to your troop, and if there be any gratitude in you for this deliverance from death, ride in the front and strike hard to-day for our king and the ancient Scottish glory.”

“Thank you, my lord, but I expected nothing else. I give you our word that we shall not fail in our duty,” said the taller soldier, with a light-hearted laugh. But the other grew dark red in the face, as if a strong passion were stirring within him. “My lord,” he said, “I would rather remain as I am till the battle be over, and then that ye give me leave to depart from the army.”

Dundee glanced keenly at him, as one weighing his words, and trying to fathom 317 their meaning, but the taller man broke in with boisterous haste:

“Pardon my comrade, general, we Englishmen have proud stomachs, and ye have offended his honor by your charges, but to-day’s fighting will be the best medicine.” And then he hurried his friend away, and as they left to join their troop he seemed to be remonstrating with him for his touchy scruples.

“What ye may think of those two gentlemen I know not, my lord,” said Lochiel, who had been standing by, “but I count the dark man the truer of the two. I like not the other, though I grant they both be brave. He is fair and false, if I am not out in my judgment, with a smooth word and a tricky dirk, like the Campbells. God grant ye be not over-generous, and trustful unto blindness.”

“Lochiel, I have trusted, as ye know, many men who have betrayed our cause; I have distrusted one who was faithful at a cost to me. On this day, maybe the last of my life, I will believe rather than doubt, in the hope that faith will be the surest bond of honor. There is something, I know not what, in that tall fellow I did not like. But what I have done, I have done, and if I have erred, Lochiel, the punishment will be on my own head.”

“On many other heads, too, I judge,” muttered Lochiel to himself, and for an instant he thought of taking private measures to hinder the two Englishmen from service that day, but considering that he would have enough to do with his own work, he went to prepare his clan for the hour that was near at hand.

Dundee dismissed his staff for the time on various duties, and attended only by Grimond, sat down upon a knoll, from which he could see the whole plateau of Urrard––the drawn-out line of his own army beneath him, and the corresponding formation of the English troops in the distance. He read MacKay’s prayer slowly and reverently, and then, letting the paper fall upon the grass, Dundee fell into a reverie. There was a day when he would have treated the prayer lightly, not because he had ever been a profane man, like Esau, but because he had no relish for soldiers who acted as chaplains.

To-day, with the lists of battle before his eyes, and the ordeal of last night still fresh in his experience, and his inexcusable cruelty to Jean, his heart was weighed with a sense of the tragedy of life and the tears of things. He was going to fight unto death for his king, but he was haunted by the conviction that 319 William was a wiser and better monarch. MacKay and he were to cross swords, as before they had crossed words, and would ever cross principles, but he could not help confessing to himself that MacKay, in the service of the Prince of Orange, had for years been doing a more soldierly part than his, in hunting to the death Covenanting peasants. His Highlanders below, hungering for the joy of battle and the gathering of spoil, were brave and faithful, but they were little more than savages, and woe betide the land that lay beneath their sword; while the troops on the other side represented the forces of order and civilization, and though they might be routed that evening, they held the promise of final victory. Was it worth the doing, and something of which afterwards a man could be proud, to restore King James to Whitehall, and place Scotland again in the hands of the gang of cowards and evil livers, thieves and liars who had misgoverned it and shamefully treated himself? What a confused and tangled web life was, and who had eyes to decipher its pattern? He would live and die for the Stuarts, as Montrose had done before him; he could not take service under William, nor be partner with the Covenanters. He could do none otherwise, and yet, what a Scotland 320 it would be under James, and what a miserable business for him to return to the hunt of the Covenanters!

The buoyancy of the morning had passed, and now his thoughts took a darker turn. MacKay, no doubt, had told the truth, for he was not capable of falsehood, but if those Englishmen were not agents of the English government, did it follow that they were clear of suspicion? There was some mystery about them, for if indeed they had been Cavalier gentlemen who had abandoned the English service, would they be so anxious to conceal themselves? Why should they refuse to let their names be known? They had come from Livingstone’s regiment. Was it possible that they had been sent by him, and if so, for what end? It is the penalty of once yielding to distrust that a person falls into the habit of suspicion, and the latent jealousy of Livingstone began to work like poison in Dundee’s blood. Jean was innocent, he would stake his life on that, but Livingstone––who knew whether the attraction of those interviews was Dundee’s cause or Dundee’s wife? If Livingstone had been in earnest, he had been with King James’s men that day; but he might be earnest enough in love, though halting enough in loyalty. If 321 her husband fell, he would have the freer course in wooing the wife. What if he had arranged the assassination, and not William’s government; what if Jean, outraged by that reflection upon her honor and infuriated by wounded pride, had consented to this revenge? Her house had never been scrupulous, and love changed to hate by an insult such as he had offered might be satisfied with nothing less than blood. Stung by this venomous thought, Dundee sprang to his feet, and looking at the westering sun, cried to Grimond, who had been watching him with unobtrusive sympathy, as if he read his thoughts, “Jock, the time for thinking is over, the time for doing has come.”

He rode along the line and gave his last directions to the army. Riding from right to left, he placed himself at the head of the cavalry, and gave the order to charge. That wild rush of Highlanders, which swept before it, across the plain of Urrard, the thin and panic-stricken line of regular troops, was not a battle. It was an onslaught, a flight, a massacre, as when the rain breaks upon a Highland mountain, and the river in the glen beneath, swollen with the mountain water, dashes to the lowlands with irresistible devastation. Grimond placed himself close 322 behind his master for the charge, and determined that if there was treachery in the ranks, the bullet that was meant for Dundee must pass through him. But the battle advance of cavalry is confused and tumultuous, as horses and men roll in the dust, and eager riders push ahead of their fellows, and no man knows what he is doing, except that the foe is in front of him. They were passing at a gallop across the ground above Urrard House, when Grimond, who was now a little in the rear of his commander, saw him lift his right arm in the air and wave his sword, and heard him cry, “King James and the crown of Scotland!” At that instant he fell forward upon his horse’s mane, as one who had received a mortal wound, and the horse galloped off towards the right, with its master helpless upon it. Through the dust of battle, and looking between two troopers who intervened, Grimond saw the fair-haired Englishman lowering the pistol and thrusting it into his holster, with which he had shot Dundee through the armpit, as he gave his last command. Onward they were carried, till one of the troopers on his right fell and the other went ahead, and there was clear course between Grimond and the Englishman. They were now, both of them, detached 323 from the main body, and the Englishman was planning to fall aside and escape unnoticed from the field. His comrade could not be seen, and evidently had taken no part in the deed. Grimond was upon him ere he knew, and before he could turn and parry the stroke, Jock’s sword was in him, and he fell mortally wounded from his horse. Keen as Grimond was to follow his master, and find him where he must be lying ahead, he was still more anxious to get the truth at last out of the dying man. He knelt down and lifted up his head.

“It is over with ye now, and thou hast done thy hellish deed. I wish to God I’d killed thee before; but say before thou goest who was thy master––was it Livingstone? Quick, man, tell the truth, it may serve thee in the other world, and make hell cooler.”

“Livingstone,” replied the Englishman with his dying breath, and a look of almost boyish triumph on his face, “what had I to do with him? It was from my Lord Nottingham, his Majesty’s secretary of state, I took my orders, and I have fulfilled them. Did I not lie bravely and do what I had to do thoroughly? Thou cunning rascal, save for thee I had also escaped. You may take my purse, for thou art a faithful servant. My hand 324 struck the final blow.” Now, his breath was going fast from him, and with a last effort, as Grimond dropped his head with a curse, he cried, “You have––won––the battle. Your cause is––lost.”

Amid the confusion the cavalry had not noticed the fall of their commander, and Grimond found his master lying near a mound, a little above the house of Urrard. He was faint through loss of blood, and evidently was wounded unto death, but he recognized his faithful follower, and thanked him with his eyes, as Jock wiped the blood from his lips––for he was wounded through the lungs––and gave him brandy to restore his strength.

“Ye cannot staunch that wound, Jock, and this is my last fight. How goes it––is it well?”

“Well for the king, my lord––the battle is won; but ill for thee, my dear maister.”

“If it be well for the king, it’s well for me, Jock, but I wish to God my wound had been in front. That fair-haired fellow, I take it, did the deed. Ye killed him, did ye, Jock? Well, he deserved it, but I fain would know who was behind him before I die. If it were he whom I suspect, Jock, I could not rest in my grave.”

“Rest easy, Maister John, I wrung the 325 truth frae his deein’ lips. It was Lord Nottingham, the English minister, wha feed him, the black-hearted devil. Livingstone had naethin’ to do wi’ the maitter, far less onybody––ye luved.”

“Thank God, and you too, Jock, my faithful friend.... Tell Lady Dundee that my last thoughts were with her, and my last breath repeated her name.... For the rest, I have done what I could, according to my conscience.... May the Lord have mercy on my sins.... God save the King!”

So, after much strife and many sorrows, Claverhouse fell in the moment of victory, and passed to his account.

THE END