"Ye are wrong there, Lady Jean, far wrong," Claverhouse suddenly turned round and looked at her with a new countenance. "I will not deny that I am made to be careless about the strife of tongues, and to give little heed whether the world condemns or approves if I do my devoir rightly to my lord the king. But it would touch me to the heart what you thought of me. They say that a woman knows if a man loves her, even though his love be sudden and unlikely, and if that be so, then surely you have seen, as we walked in this pleasaunce those fair evenings, that I have loved you from the moment I saw you in the hall that day. Confess it, Jean, if that be not so. I, with what I heard of Pollock, was bound in honor to be silent."

"Was Pollock the only bond of honor?" and Jean blazed on him with sudden fury. "Is there no other tie that should keep you from speaking of love to me and offering me insult in my father's house? Is this the chivalry of a Royalist, and am I, Jean Cochrane, to be treated like a light lady of the Court, or some poor lass of the countryside ye can play with at your leisure? Pleased by your notice and then flung aside like a flower ye wore till it withered."

"Before God, what do ye mean by those words?" They were both standing now, and Graham's face was white as death. "Is the love of John Graham of Claverhouse a dishonor?"

"It is, and so is the love of any man if he be pledged to another woman. Though we go not to Court, think you I have not heard of Helen Graham, the heiress of Monteith, and your courting of her—where, the story goes, ye have been more successful than catching ministers of the kirk? Ye would play with me! I thank God my brother lives, and they say he is no mean swordsman."

"If it were as you believe, my lady, and I had spoken of love to you when I was betrothed to another woman, then ye did well and worthy of your blood to be angry, and my Lord Cochrane's sword, if it had found its way to my heart, had rid the world of a rascal. Rumor is often wrong, and it has told you false this time. I deny not, since I am on my confession, that I desired to wed Helen Graham, and I will also say freely, though it also be to my shame, that I desired to win her, not only because she was a Graham and a gracious maiden, but because I should obtain rank and power, for I have ever hungered for both, that with them I might serve my cause. My suit did not prosper, so that we were never betrothed, and now I hear she is to be married to Captain Rawdon, the nephew of my Lord Conway. I would have married Helen Graham in her smock if need be, though I say again I craved that title, and I would have been a faithful husband to her. But I have never loved her, nor any other woman before. Love, Jean"—he went on, and they both unconsciously had seated themselves a little apart—"is like the wind spoken of in the Holy Gospel. It bloweth where it listeth, and is not to be explained by reasons. In my coming and going to Court I have seen many fair women, and some of them have smiled on me and tried to take me by the lure of their eyes, but none has ever been so bonnie to me as you, Jean, and your hair of burnished gold. Doubtless I have met holier women than you, though my way has not lain much among the saints, but though one should show me a hundred faults in you, ye are to me to-day the best, and I declare if ye had sinned I would love you for your sins only less than for your virtues. I love you as a man should love a woman: altogether, your fair body from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot, your hair, your eyes, your mouth, your hands, the way you hold your head, the way you walk, your white teeth when you smile, and the dimple on your cheek. Yourself, too, the Jean within that body, with your courage, your pride, your scorn, your temper, your fierce desires, your fiery jealousies, your changing moods. And your passion, with its demands, with its surrenders, with its caresses, with its pain. You, Jean Cochrane, as you are and as you shall be, with all my heart and with all my body, with all my loyalty, next to that I give my king, I love you, Jean." He leaned towards her as he spoke, and all the passion that was hidden behind his girl face and Court manner—the passion that had made him the most daring of soldiers, and was to make him the most successful of leaders—poured from his eyes, from his lips, from his whole self, like a hot stream, enveloping, overwhelming and captivating her. Strong as she was in will and character, she could not speak nor move, but only looked at him, with eyes wide open, from the midst of the wealth of her golden hair.



"Do I not know the sacrifice I am asking if you should consent to be my wife? Jean, I will tell you true: not for my love even and your bonnie self will I lie or palter with my faith. You will have to come to me, I will not go to you; you will have to break with the Covenant, leave your father's house and face your mother's anger, and be denounced by the godly, up and down the land, because ye married the man of blood and the persecutor of the saints. I will not change, ye understand that? No, not for the warm, soft clasp of your white arms round my neck; no, not though ye tie me with the meshes of your shining hair. I judge that ye will not be a temptress, but I give you warning I am no Sampson, in his weakness to a woman's witchery, when it comes to my faith and my duty. I will love you night and day as a man loveth a woman, but I will do what I am told to do, even though it be against your own people, till the evil days be over. And it may be, Jean, that I shall have to lead a hopeless cause. Ye must be willing to give me to death without a grudge, and send me with a kiss to serve the king.

"Can you do this"—and now his voice sank almost to a whisper, and he stretched his hands towards her—"for the sake of love, for love's sake only, for the sight of my face, for the touch of my lips, for the clasp of my arms, for the service of my heart, for myself? If ye should, I will be a true man to you, Jean, till death us do part. I have not been better than other men, but women have never made me play the fool, and even your own folk, who hate me, will tell you that I have been a clean liver. And now I will never touch or look on any other woman in the way of love save you. If I have to leave your side to serve the king, I will return when the work is done, and all the time I am away my love will be returning to you. If you be not in my empty arms, you shall ever be in my heart; if I win honor or wealth, it will now be for you. If I can shelter you from sorrows and trouble, I will do so with my life, and if I die my last thought, after the cause, will be of you, my lady and my love.

"Jean Cochrane, can you trust yourself to me; will you be the wife of John Graham of Claverhouse?"

They had risen as by an instinct, and were facing one another where the light of the setting sun fell softly upon them through the fretted greenery of the beech tree.

"For life, John Graham, and for death," and as she said "death" he clasped her in his arms. The brown hair mingled with the gold, they looked into one another's eyes, and their lips met in a long, passionate kiss, renewed again and again, as if their souls had flowed together. Then she disentangled herself and stood a pace away, and laying her hands upon his shoulders and looking steadfastly at him, she said: "Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."

The sooner they were married the better pleased John Graham and Jean Cochrane would be, for life in Paisley Castle could not be a paradise for Jean after that betrothal. Three weeks later Claverhouse rode down one Saturday from Edinburgh to Paisley against his marriage day on the following Tuesday. His love for Jean had steadily grown during those days, and now was in a white heat of anticipation, for she was no nun, but a woman to stir a man's senses. Yet there were many things to chasten and keep him sober. No sooner was it known that he was to marry Lady Cochrane's daughter and the granddaughter of Lord Cassillis than his rivals in the high places of Scotland and at Whitehall did their best to injure him, setting abroad stories that he was no longer loyal, and that in future he would play into the hands of the enemy. His young wife would certainly get round him and shake his integrity, and it would not be wise to trust Claverhouse with secrets of grave affairs. It was prophesied that this amazing and incongruous marriage, the mating of opposites, would only work ruin to his career, and that indeed this was the beginning of the end for Claverhouse. Lady Cochrane, raging like a fiend in Paisley Castle, did not fail, in the interludes of invective against her daughter for disgracing their good name and giving herself into the hands of the cruelest enemy of the kirk, to remind Jean also that she was doing the worst injury to the man she professed to love, and that in the end Claverhouse would be twice damned—for his sin against the Covenanters and for his disloyalty to his own cause. Jean was, of all women, most capable of holding her own even with her masterful mother, and Claverhouse was perfectly confident that neither Lady Cochrane nor her family would be able to shake Jean's fidelity. But there were times, and they were her bitterest hours, when Jean was not sure whether she had not done selfishly and was not going to satisfy her love at the expense of her lover. On his part, he could not help being anxious, for it seemed as if every man of his own party had turned his hand against him. With all his severity, Claverhouse had a just mind, and he offended Queensberry by protesting against the severity of the law; while the Duke of Perth, an unprincipled vagabond, ready to play traitor to either king or religion, hated Claverhouse because he was an honorable man. Claverhouse thought it necessary to write to the Duke of York, explaining the circumstances of his marriage and assuring him of his continued loyalty, and to the Duke of Hamilton, whose daughter was to be married to young Lord Cochrane, testifying to the integrity of Jean. "For the young lady herself, I shall answer for her. Had she been right principled she would never in despyt of her mother and relations made choyse of a persecutor, as they call me. So, whoever think to misrepresent me on that head will find themselves mistaken; for both the king and the church's interest, dryve as fast as they think fit, they will never see me behind."

Lord Dundonald himself was pleased because the marriage secured Claverhouse's influence, and so were his personal friends, such as Lord Ross, who knew and admired Jean; Claverhouse could not hide from himself, however, that the world judged the marriage an irreparable mistake, and Grimond, so far as he dared—but he had now to be very careful—rubbed salt into the wound. All the omens were against them, and when on the Sunday Claverhouse sat beside his bride in the Abbey church, the people gave them a cold countenance, and as they went up the street true Presbyterians turned their faces from Claverhouse. The marriage service was performed in the gallery of the castle, and the minister officiating was one who had taken the indulgence and was avoided by the stricter people of the kirk. The contract was signed by Lord Dundonald and the old countess with weak and feeble hands, but the bride and bridegroom placed their names with strong and unhesitating characters. Lord Ross stood beside his commanding officer as best man, and young Lord Cochrane was also present, full of good-will and sympathy, for was he not himself about to marry the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton? But neither Dundonald's weakly approval nor the gayety of the young men could lift the shadow that fell within and without, both in the gallery and in the courtyard of the castle, upon the marriage of Claverhouse and Jean Cochrane. News had come two days before that there had been a rising among the Covenanters, and Claverhouse was ordered to pursue them with his cavalry. His regiment was in the district, and while the service was going on in the castle, his horse was saddled in the courtyard, and a guard of troopers were making ready to start. The sound of the champing of bits and the clinking of spurs came up through the quiet summer air and mingled with the prayer of the minister. Lady Cochrane was not supposed to be present, but when the minister asked if anyone could show just cause why this marriage should not be performed, she appeared suddenly from an alcove where she had been sheltered behind the servants. Stepping forward, she said, with an unfaltering voice, vibrant with solemn indignation, "In the name of God and in my own, I, the mother of Jean Cochrane, forbid this marriage, because she is marrying against my will, and joining herself to the persecutor of God's people; because she is turning herself against her father's house and forsaking the faith of her father's God." The minister paused for a moment, for he was a quiet man and stood in awe of Lady Cochrane; he looked anxiously at the bride and bridegroom. "I have made my choice," said Jean, "and I adhere to it with my mind and heart," and Claverhouse, with a smile and bow, bade the minister do his duty. When they were married there was a moment's stillness, during which the bridegroom kissed the bride, and then Lady Cochrane spoke again. "Ye have gone your own way and done your own will, John Graham and Jean Cochrane, and the curse of God's kirk and of a mother goes with you. The veil is lifted from before my eyes, and I prophesy that neither the bridegroom nor the bride will die in their beds. There are those here present who will witness one day that I have spoken true."

Claverhouse led his bride to the wing of the castle, where she lived, and from which she could look down on the courtyard. At the door of her room he kissed her again and bade her good-by. "This is what ye have got, Jean, by marrying me," and his smile was dashed with sadness. Two minutes later he rode out from the courtyard of the castle to hunt the people of Lady Cochrane's faith, while her daughter and his bride waved him God speed from her window.



BOOK III

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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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? 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 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 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, 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 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 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 reenforce 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 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 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.

"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 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.



CHAPTER II

THE CRISIS

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 reenforcing 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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.



CHAPTER III

THE LAST BLOW

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, 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 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, 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; 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 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. 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 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 reenforcement, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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' 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, 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, 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 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 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 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."