On our way into the town a thing happened which greatly shook me, being, as I was, nothing in the world but a small farmer who had never seen the wars. At a point where the rough road cut across a fold in the moorlands we saw, half a mile to our right, a herd of cattle being lashed and chivvied away to the remoter crannies among the hills by a throng of sweating hinds and fanners. Had it happened our way, thought I broodily, Joe and I would be there among the like, saving our own stock from the marauders. Donald looked at them longingly, but our haste brooked no delay, and besides, as he put it to me later, "It's a puir town, but, after a' said, better than a wheen lousy cattle, for I've come by a fine pair o' progues for a twa-three bawbees."
Leek was as full of Highlanders as a wasp-cake is of maggots, and still they were swarming in. Donald and the clansmen, indifferent to the crush and hubbub, clave a way for us to the market-place, where, on the Colonel's advice, they were dismissed to beat for billets. I then took charge and led my companions across to the "Angel," where the throng was so dense that they might have been giving the ale away.
To get the horses stabled and baited was easy enough, for few of the Highlanders rode south, although it was different going north again. Then, leading my companions into the yard, I pushed into the inn and, by good hap, lighted on the host, nearly out of his five wits with trying to understand one word of English in a score of Gaelic.
"Hello, surry!" said I.
"Gom!" said he, "Staffordsheer at last."
"I've heard a lot about Leek ale," said I. "Draw me a mug of it!"
He brought it in a trice, and his face beamed with honest pride as he said, holding it up between my eyes and the light, "What do you think o' that for colour and nap? Damn my bones! None of your London rot-gut, master, but honest Staffordsheer ale. Damme, you can fairly chew the malt in it."
"I'll bet you a guinea I've drunk better," said I, with the aleyard at my lips.
"I'd bet on my own ale," said he, "if the 'Angel' was full of devils let alone petticoats. An', as between friends, y'r 'onour, win or lose, dunna tell my missus you've 'ad better ale than ourn."
I drank off his ale and said judiciously, "No, I haven't. That's the best ale I've ever drunk," and handed him his guinea.
"This'n's a bit of fat along with the lean," said he, spinning the guinea up in the air, and, countrywise, spitting on it for luck. "Be there owt I can do for y'r, sir? A gentleman as knows good ale when he drinks it shudna be neglected for a lot of bare-legged savages that 'anna as much judgment in beer as a sow 'as in draff." He leaned towards me and added in a whisper, "I'm giving 'em bouse I wudna wesh my mare's fetlocks in, an' they're neckin' it as if it was my rale October."
"It was thundery in the summer," said I gravely, whereat he grinned intelligently.
"Y'r 'onour's up to snuff," said he. "Be there owt I can do for y'r, sir?"
"Fetch the missus," said I, "and we'll talk."
The hostess came. Her cheeks were brown as her own ale, and we talked, nineteen to the dozen, for at least ten minutes.
In the end I snapped up the best parlour overlooking the square for Margaret's use, and bedrooms for each of us, paying a substantial bargain-penny, for Mistress Waynflete had handed me back the bag of gold Master Freake had given me. It would be necessary, I found, to oust two or three bare-knees who had marked them for their own, but that could easily be done, if, as was unlikely to be the case, they were sober enough at night to crawl bedwards. These arrangements made, I pushed out and fetched in Margaret, who was very grateful for what I had done, and went off to her room, while we three men took our stand on the bricked causeway and watched the doings in the square.
We saw two or three battalions swing into the square from the Macclesfield road, and the Colonel scanned them keenly, and, as I thought, anxiously. Even to my untrained eye they were a mixed lot; the bulk of them, to be sure, were stout, active, well-armed fighting men, who marched in fair order, six or eight abreast; but there were numbers of oldish men and boys among them, and many were but indifferently armed.
"What do you number all told?" asked the Colonel.
Maclachlan answered in French. There was now no mistaking the gravity in the Colonel's face, and he took snuff so thoughtfully that, for the first time, he forgot me.
"Excuse me, my dear lad," said he, recovering himself and thrusting out the box towards me. "I hope there's a tobacco-man in the town who sells right Strasburg. I'm running out, and rappee and Brazil are mere rubbish to the cultivated palate." Then, looking around the square, he added cheerily, "Quite a show for the townsmen!"
Just in front of us, standing on the edge of the gutter, was a little, ancient, distinguished dame, who had been watching the scene with quick, avid eyes. She turned her fierce, scornful face up to the Colonel, and said, "Yes, sir! You are right. It's a show, just a show, for the townsmen. Yet I remember that, thirty years ago, the fathers of these spiritless curs were as eager for the cause as is the eagle for his quarry."
"So, madam," said the Colonel very gently.
"So, indeed," she returned. "But now, in their accursed grubbing for money, they have rooted up every finer instinct, and they think only of their tradings in silks with the Court ladies of London. Better a fine gown sold to godless Caroline than a stout blow struck for God-anointed James."
She was beyond doubt a lady of quality, but fallen on poverty and now, worst of all to her, on evil, faithless days. As she stopped, short of breath with her sharp speaking, for she was very ancient, a mean lout of a man edged himself up against her to get a better position for watching the arrival of another body of clansmen. In a fierce access of rage she struck him with the ebony stick on which she leaned and, almost hissing the words at him, said, "Back to your buttons and your tassels, Thomas Ashley, and get grace by thinking on your worthy father!"
The man sidled off, and she continued, addressing the Colonel, "In the fifteen his father was one of us, and suffered worthily."
"For what, madam?" I asked.
"For the cause," she replied.
"For what particular service to the cause, madam?" I persisted.
"He was zealous against the schismatics, sir," she said boldly.
"Madam," was my reply, "if the zeal of any one of us, townsman or clansman, takes the same form this day, I shall certainly wring his neck. We can fight for Charles without burning chapels."
"Smite-and-spare-not would subscribe to that doctrine," said Margaret, thrusting her way gently between the Colonel and me, and hooking a hand round an arm of each of us. Putting her lips to my ear, she whispered merrily, "Push of pike and the Word," and then looked so winningly at me that the black shadow lifted, and I smiled back at her.
And now the craning of necks at the angle where the great road curved into the square, betokened something out of the ordinary, which turned out to be the arrival of the Prince's life-guards. They were splendid, well-mounted fellows, clothed in blue, faced with red, and scarlet waistcoats heavy with gold. With them were the leading chiefs of the army, and I heard Maclachlan reeling off their names and qualities in the Colonel's ear. The guard, in number some sixscore, formed three sides of a square and sat their horses, while one of the leaders proclaimed James and took possession of the town.
The cheers of the clansmen died away, only to be renewed more loudly and proudly when another column swept into the square. Here, indeed, were men apt for war and the battle, six abreast and a hundred files deep, with a dozen pipers piping their mightiest, and a great standard flinging to the breeze its proud Tandem triumphans. At their head strode a tall young man, very comely and proper, with a frank, resolute, intelligent face. He was dressed in the Highland fashion, with a blue bonnet topped with a white rosette, a broad, blue ribbon over his right shoulder, and a star upon his breast. The thronging thousands of clansmen burst into thundering volleys of Gaelic yells, the waiting leaders bared their heads and bowed, and I knew it was the Prince.
After a short consultation with his intimate counsellors, Charles walked almost directly towards us, making, as it seemed, for the fine house that neighboured the "Angel."
Even the townsmen, as he approached, raised their hats and cheered a little, for he was on sight a man to be liked. When I hear sad tales of him now, I think of him as I saw him then, and as I knew him in those few stirring days when hope spurred him on, and the star of his destiny had not yet climbed to its zenith. I come of a stock that sets no value on princes, and I would not now lift a hand to snatch the Stuarts out of the grave they have dug for themselves, but it is due to him, and, above all, due to the chiefs and clansmen who followed and fought and died for him, to say that the Bonnie Charlie I knew was every inch of him a man and a prince to his finger-tips.
Maclachlan darted out and dropped on his knee before Charles, who, with kindly impatience, seized the shoulder-knot of his plaid, haled him to his feet, and plied him with a throng of questions. At some reply made by the young chief, Charles turned his eyes on us, and, easily picking out the Colonel, made for him with eager outstretched hands. For his part, the Colonel stepped clear of the crowd on the causeway and stood at the salute. He was, I thought, the most self-possessed person in the square, and, indeed, was taking a pinch of snuff as soon as the formality was over, while Margaret was red and white by turns, and I shook at the knees as if expecting the Prince, in the manner of old Bloggs, to call me out and thrash me soundly.
The joy of the Prince at being joined by Colonel Waynflete was overflowing.
"My Lord Murray has talked of you," I heard him say, "until I felt that you were the one man in England that mattered, and now here you are. I must tell Sheridan and all of them the good news."
He turned off and called to a group of men near him, and several of them came up and were made known to the Colonel. After more handshaking and chatting, the eager Prince caught the Colonel by the arm and was for dragging him off into the house destined for his lodging, but the Colonel in his turn resisted and led him towards Margaret.
"My daughter, sir," he said, briefly and proudly.
Off came the bonnet, and Charles bowed low and greeted her with very marked courtesy.
"Your prince, madam," he said, "but also your very humble servant. My Court is a small one, and you are as important and welcome an addition to it as is your distinguished father to my army. Swounds, Colonel," turning to him with a merry smile, "I shall put a flea in his lordship's ear when I see him at Derby. He never so much as mentioned your daughter. Man, one might as well talk of stars and forget Venus!"
"There is this excuse for him, sir," said the Colonel, very sedately, "that on the only occasion on which my Lord Murray saw her, which was at Turin in 1738, she was a whirlwind of arms and legs, long plaits and short petticoats."
"Whereas now she--but I will reserve my opinion for the shelter of a fan in a secluded corner at my next little Court." Then, very abruptly, fixing his eyes on me, all of a swither, with my milk-stained cap in my hand, "And whom have we here?"
Whereupon, strangely enough, forgetting all courtliness, Margaret, the Colonel, and Maclachlan fell over one another, so to speak, in telling the Prince who I was. For a few seconds there was a gabble of introductions, which made me feel hot and foolish.
"One at a time," laughed the Prince, "and, of course, Mistress Waynflete first."
"Your Royal Highness," said Margaret, "this is my splendid friend and gallant comrade, Oliver Wheatman."
"Enough, and more than enough, for a poor Prince Adventurer. Give me but the leavings of your friendship and comradeship, Master Wheatman, and I shall be beholden to you. And now, excuse us, madam, I have much to say to your father."
"Sir," said I, "I crave a little boon."
"You begin well," he said, and added, after a little laugh, "With all my heart."
"Here at hand," said I, "is an ancient lady who has faced this rough crowd and this bitter weather to see the Prince of her heart's desire. She is brave as a lion for you, but too modest to do more than stand and pray for you."
And then he did one of those princely things that made rough men willing to be cut down in swathes for him. He strode up to her and seized her trembling hands.
"Nay, kneel not, dear lady," he said, putting an arm around her to restrain her.
"God bless your Royal Highness, and give you victory," she said brokenly. "This is the hour I have prayed for daily these thirty years, and I thank God for giving us a Prince so worthy of an earthly throne. The Lord shall yet have mercy upon Jacob."
"I thank God," said Charles, "for giving me a friend like you."
His green plaid was looped up at his shoulder by a fine brooch, a cairngorm set in a silver rim. This he took off, and pinned it on the trembling woman's breast.
"Wear this from me and for me," he said, speaking with great feeling. Tears were standing in Margaret's eyes, there was a big lump in my throat, and the Colonel was wasting precious Strasburg on the cobbles in the square. When the Prince had pinned it there, he doffed his bonnet, bent gracefully down, kissed her on the lips, and so left her. The standers-by now cheered in earnest, and the ancient dame fell on her knees in prayer. When she rose she plucked her robe around her, safeguarding her royal gift in her withered hands, and was for timidly stealing away.
"Madam," said I, "I think you are alone."
"Yes, sir," she whispered.
I offered her my arm, saying, "Allow me to escort you to your home?"
The sharp eyes swept over me from my belt upward, and then, without a word, she placed her arm in mine. I looked around to bow to Margaret before starting, but she had disappeared.
We soon reached her house or, rather, cottage, which was in a street behind the west side of the square. She was too tottery, too dazzled, too afflated to speak on the way thither, but, at the door, when with a bow I was intending to leave her, she bade me, in a madam-like way that cut off debate or refusal, to enter with her.
Plain to the casual eye, it was the home of decayed gentility. Here would be refined eating of a dinner of herbs, solaced by talk of prideful yesterdays. You saw it in the few things that still kept their grip on the past: on the wall an old, black painting of a knight in ruff and quilted doubtlet; a pounce-box and a hawking-glove on the chimney-piece, and above it an oval scutcheon, with a golden eagle naissant from a fesse vert. And hope was ever new-born here, but it was the hope centred in the Virgin-Mother, posed in ivory over a wooden prie-Dieu. Nor did I feel that I had shifted from my familiar moorings as I bowed my head when she knelt in prayer.
"Madam," said I, when, with a happy face, she rose and turned and thanked me, "it is in your power to do me a great kindness."
"I shall, then, most surely do it."
"I ask you to pray for the soul of John Dobson."
"He was your friend?" she said gently.
"My friend from boyhood, madam, and this morning I slew him."
There was silence for a space. Then she said, "I will pray daily for the soul of your friend, and for you that God will have mercy upon you and give you peace. We women, who can only pray, do not, I fear, realize how, for our men, the facts of life seem to make havoc of our creeds."
"You are right, madam," I said sombrely. "For me to-day there is no God in heaven."
"Yet the morrow cometh," she replied confidently. "It has come for me. My mind goes back to the time when the evil began that our glorious Prince is now uprooting. In eighty-eight, when I was a maid of some twenty Junes, not uncomely as I remember myself in my mirror, though not comparable with your sweet and splendid mistress, we, then the ancient Hardys of Hardywick, gave our all and lost our all for the cause. Yon scutcheon then hung in a noble hall. I have looked at it with pride and, God be thanked, without regret, during nearly sixty years of loneliness and poverty, but I shall die rich and friended in the possession of this."
She lifted the brooch to her lips and kissed it, and then, poor soul, broke into a fit of coughing that racked her thin frame. A comely serving-woman rushed in to her aid, and together we seated her near the fire and wrapped a shawl around her. She seemed as one who slept with half-shut eyes and dreamed.
"She's of'n tuk like this'n," whispered her woman. "As lively as a lass at a wedding for an hour maybe, and then dreamy and dead-like for hours at a stretch. She's seventy-six come June, but I dunna think she'll live to see it, and to be sure, God bless her, I shall be glad to see her broken heart at rest."
She put a smelling-bottle to her mistress's nose, and bathed the white lips with eau-de-Luce.
"I love her no end," she said simply.
It was time to go. I dropped on my knee and kissed the fair, thin, wrinkled hand. At the touch of my lips she spoke again:
"Good-bye, Harold, my beloved! The God of all good causes go with thee!"
She was back in the long-ago with her lover at her knee, sending him off to fight for the cause, and the ringless finger showed that he had never come back.
I stole out of the room with a mist in my eyes.
When I got on the corner by the Prince's lodging, the first thing that caught my eye was a calash drawn up in the middle of the square, with two very elegant ladies in it, and a sprig of a blackamoor in green breeches and yellow doublet at the horse's head. Margaret and Maclachlan were standing by, and a merry rattle of conversation was going on between them and the new-comers, though Margaret, her quick mind interested in the vivid scenes around, kept turning her head to sweep the square with her eyes.
I had always felt and, for the most part I trust, observed the difference between us, but it struck me now like a blow between the eyes. It was easy to see that Margaret, for all her grey domino, was the mistress of the gay, courtly group; easy, too, to catch the meaning of the eyes the stranger ladies made at one another as they noted with amusement the young Chief's infatuation. Well, he was there, and I was here, by right. I said so to myself very savagely, that there should be no mistake about it, but I must admit to a sour taste in my mouth as I pushed into a passing group of clansmen, and then dodged behind a clump of ammunition wagons, and so got into a side-alley unseen by those searching eyes.
I came to an ale-house where I managed very well, for all that it had its full share of clansmen stuffed into it, making a square meal of bread and cheese and cold bacon, washed down with excellent ale. I made a point of marking myself off as an Englishman by paying for my meal in the English fashion.
Sallying forth, and still avoiding the square, I roamed round the little town, distracting my mind by forcing an interest in what was going on. The Highlanders were happy, noisy, and full of confidence--not unjustly, for so far they had played ninepins with the Royal troops. Everywhere they were hard at it, sharpening dirks and claymores and furbishing muskets, and such of their talk as I could understand was all of battle imminent. In the churchyard I found a number of them practising shooting, with a grand old cross as a target. They had chipped it somewhat already. I cursed them roundly and then bargained it off at the price of a few shillings. They turned their attention, with hopeful grins, to the brass weathercock on the church tower, which I did not deem worth saving. Moreover, it was a better mark, and good shooting was to be encouraged.
I mooned around for an hour or so, very miserable. If my mind was idle a moment, I saw Jack's body lying in the dim-lit passage and the calash in the market-square.
Tired of watching the Highlanders, I suddenly struck out for the "Angel," intending to see how the horses were doing, a necessary task which I was to blame for neglecting so long. I was going at a great pace along by the shops on one side of the square and, in heedlessly passing a mercer's, had to skip aside to avoid a finely dressed lady coming out of the door, with the shopmaster, his nose nearly at his knees, bowing behind her. She was a stranger to me and, moreover, I had my eye on the spot where the calash had stood, so that, having clean avoided her, I was for striding on, but she said sharply, "What do you mean by such conduct, sir?"
I cannot remember any other occasion in my life when I have been so completely taken aback. The elegant lady who stood there, a quizzing smile on her face and a roguish twinkle in her eyes, was Margaret.
"I've waited and waited your honour's convenience till I could wait no longer," she said.
There was still the delightful mock anger in her voice, but the smile and twinkle changed their meaning, so to speak. At least I, who delighted to watch the varying shades of expression sweep over her exquisite face, thought so as I stood there, twizzling my cap in my hand, and feeling an utter fool.
"You cannot expect a perfect match in this light," she went on, plainly enjoying my discomfiture, "especially as I have had to carry the colour in my eye."
"No, madam," said I desperately, having to say something, but not having the faintest idea of what she was driving at.
"I disclaim all responsibility if it's a bungle. It will be your fault entirely. Your arm, sir!"
I offered her my arm, into which she slipped hers, jammed on my wretched hat, and together we made for the "Angel." Of course we must meet Maclachlan, to complete my misery I suppose, and he was keen on joining us, but Margaret disposed of him in a way that reminded me of Kate shooing a turkey off from her feeding chickens. Arrived at the "Angel," she led the way to her parlour overlooking the square, dragged me hurriedly to the window, and undid the packet. From it she took a patch of cloth and a hank of silk thread. These she first dabbed on my sleeve, and then flourished before my eyes.
"Quite a good match after all! Do they suit me, Oliver?"
She was dressed in a cinnamon-brown joseph, buttoned at the waist, and showing, above and below, an under-dress of supple woven material, creamy in colour and flowered in golden silk. A hat of a military cast, made of some short-napped fur and set off with a great white panache, half hid and half revealed her masses of yellow hair.
"You look perfect," I said emphatically.
"For my Prince," she replied softly. "Off with your coat, and let me show you what sort of a housewife I am."
I did as she bade me, and she doffed hat and joseph. She set me comfortably before the fire in an elbow-chair, and handed me a new pipe and a fresh paper of tobacco, and insisted on my smoking. Then, sitting almost at my feet in a squat rush-bottomed chair, with quaint bow legs and a back like a yard of ladder, she set to work on the holes Brocton's rapier had made in my coat.
I felt very cubbish as I sat feeding my soul on the picture she made as she bent over her stitchery. A rare hobbledehoy I was in my villainous coat, but what I looked like in my shirt-sleeves, good linen enough but home-made and with never a shred of cuff or ruff to them, was past imagining.
She was quite silent too, and though talk of any sort would have been distasteful to me then, for the picture was enough, I could not help remembering how she had rattled on with Maclachlan. Here was another cursed deficiency. My conversation was as country-like and poverty-stricken as my clothes. I had always ruled the roast at our market ordinaries, where I was looked upon as a bit of a fop and a miracle of learning, and even my farming was solemnly respected because I was so hard and ready a hitter. Here, in a parlour and with her, so beautiful that even her beautiful dress scarce attracted a passing glance, I was dull and ill at ease. The only thing I did, except to look at her, was to let my pipe out and light it again, time after time.
"The man in the shop told me," Margaret said, "that was the best tobacco that comes from the Americas."
"I should think it is," said I; "I've never smoked better."
"It gives you a lot of trouble," she answered, and stayed her stitching for a moment to look at me.
"Did you get some right Strasburg for the Colonel?" I asked.
"No. Is he running short?"
"Yes," said I.
"And no marvel, either. He puts his snuff-box under his pillow, and when I take him his chocolate of a morning, he takes a long, affectionate pinch, and then says, 'Good morrow, sweetheart!'"
I laughed, and then fell silent and wondered. While I had been loafing about the town, she had been attending to my small whims and needs.
And now, after a smart rap at the door, in flounced a sprightly, elegant lady, very gay and very certain of herself.
"What a charming, domestic picture!" she broke out. "I fear I intrude, Margaret dear, but I'm going to stay. The girl is bringing up the tea, and I'm positively dying for a cup and a sit-down. Of course this"--turning gaily round on me, standing there like a great gawk, volubly cursing my shirt-sleeves under my breath--"is the incomparable Oliver! Charmed to meet you, sir!"
I bowed, and Margaret said staidly, "Yes, my lady. This is Master Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards. Oliver, I have the privilege of introducing you to the Lady Ogilvie."
I bent in the middle again and gabbled something. It was suitable to the occasion, I hope.
Lady Ogilvie eyed me up and down carefully, much as I should overlook a bullock I had a mind to buy.
"When Davie left me at Macclesfield I told him I'd be guid, and I will be guid, but I wish he hadn't asked me," she said. "Never mind! At Derby, when we meet again, my promise will be lapsed, and I shall flirt with you, sir, most furiously."
"Really, my lady," I replied, "my knowledge of the art of flirtation is merely rudimentary, but I always understood that it required two."
"Naturally," she retorted, "that's its great charm."
"I see my mistake now," said I, as if thoughtfully. Margaret sat with her needle poised for a stitch, and waited.
"You're learning already, you see! What is it?" said Lady Ogilvie.
"One and a bit would suffice when your ladyship was the one," I said boldly.
Margaret laughed and resumed the swift play of her needle.
"Indeed so, and I've struck sparks out of turnips in my time," she replied, with much complaisance. "There's a glisk of intelligence about ye now that was sair to seek when I came into the room. Men are like diamonds, you must know, Margaret darling, all the better for being cut and rubbed. I'll teach ye things, sir, at and after Derby, that is. Till then I'm to be verra guid."
The bringing in of the tea interrupted us. Over the cups, though Margaret stuck to her work, there was gay talk about the main business of the day--the supper and ball to come.
"The men will simply rave over you, dear," she said to Margaret. "There's only six of us, seven with you added, you see, for no town ladies wait on His Royal Highness nowadays, and I'm danced off my feet. Maclachlan will want you every time, and you'll be wise to have him as often as possible, for he dances like a fairy. Davie's none so bad, but Maclachlan is just grand. And the incomparable one," grimacing prettily at me, "will foot it trippingly by the look of him."
"I dance like a three-legged bear," said I, grim enough at having my defects brought home to me.
"Is it that you're telling me?" she replied. "Legs like yours and no music in them! Well, well, I'll take you in hand, that's flat. At Derby, of course."
"Now, Oliver, pray attend to the simpler matters that I deal with," said Margaret, cutting off the last needle of silk. "I've done the best I can for you. Come and appraise my work!"
She held the coat up by the collar, and I stepped forward and examined it.
"Marvellous!" said I. "It's as good as new."
Her ladyship screeched with laughter. "Oh, you courtier!" she said. "I never saw anything better done at the Tuileries. Look a foot higher, you rogue!"
Still even there the job was neatly and thoroughly done, and I thanked Margaret for it heartily. With my coat on, I brightened up, and indeed I had need to, for most of their talk was in and about a world of which I knew nothing. Thanks to Margaret's hints and half-lights, I did well enough.
There came a gentle rap at the door and then, without further ceremony, the Colonel bowed in a visitor. In the twilight at the door there was no seeing who the new-comer was, but as he stepped forward the full light revealed him. It was Prince Charles.
"Stir not, ladies, on your allegiance!" he said gaily. I rose, bowed him into my chair, and stood behind him.
"Oddsfish, as my great uncle used to say, I've come to save your life, Master Wheatman!"
"You need not trouble, sir," said I, "to save what is freely yours to throw away."
"Very well said, sir," he answered, "and I shall not forget it."
"Good lad, Oliver!" said the Colonel, dipping for his snuff-box.
"Still, I must prove my point!" said Charles, smiling merrily. "My Court consists of precisely seven ladies and an unlimited number of gentlemen, the latter, for the most part, fiery chiefs who slash off men's heads as if they were tops of thistles. Yet here are you, sir, keeping two of them all to yourself. And such a two! Lady Ogilvie, whose charms are without blemish--"
"Nay, sir," said I.
"May I pull his ears, Your Highness?" asked her ladyship tartly.
"You may," said Charles, "unless he proves his point. A Prince must be just, you know!"
"That's fair," said Margaret.
"Of course," retorted Lady Ogilvie. "He'll be right if he says I've an eye like an ox and a mouth like a frog."
"Save your ears, Master Wheatman!" said Charles, grinning at me. "What's the blemish?"
"Davie!" said I.
The Prince rocked with laughter, and her ladyship enjoyed it quite as fully.
"It's the smartest hit I've heard since I left Paris," said the Prince.
"Sir," said I, "be good enough to explain. Who is Davie?"
"Her ladyship's husband," he replied.
"Damme!" I ejaculated. "I thought he was only an ordinary Scotchman." Whereat everybody laughed.
"A most delightful interlude in a heavy day's work," said the Prince. "I am unfeignedly vexed, ladies, at having to rob you of so agreeable a cavalier, but I need Master Wheatman myself."
Half an hour later the Colonel stood with me at the town's end to give me my final instructions. I was on Sultan, with urgent letters in my pocket and important work on hand.
We took a pinch of snuff together very solemnly. Then he snapped his box, rubbed Sultan's velvet nose, shook my hand, said good-bye gruffly, and strode back townward. I cantered on into the open road and the night.
