It was a relief to get into the chock-full streets of the town, where thinking was impossible and good round cursing indispensable. Even with its aid in clearing a course for him, Sultan tumbled over a brace of Highlanders, two of a swarm of Maclachlans and Macdonalds who were disputing possession of a cutler's shop on the corner of Bag Street. After their native fashion, they immediately suspended their quarrel to unite against a common foe, but on a Maclachlan recognizing me as a friend, went at one another again with infinite zest, and I saw them hard at it as I turned into the market-square.
Our meagre collection of cannon had been packed here with their appendancies, and I was threading my way through them to the far side of the square, where stands Exeter House, and was within a flick of a pebble of it, when the Colonel ran out, bareheaded and eager, and came up to me.
"You young dog! What's happened?" said he.
"I've lost my hat, sir," I replied.
"Lost your--Damme! I'll have you court-martialled yet before I've done with you. Off you come! Hello, my precious. Hitch him to the tail of yon wagon and come along. The Prince saw you from the window. Steady, my beauty! Come along, Noll! Fancy a town the size of this and not a damned pinch of Strasburg in it!"
I hurried after him through the hall and up the stairs. Something big was in hand beyond a doubt, for hall and stairs were thronged with groups of Highland leaders, and in one set, somewhat apart, I saw Murray and Ogilvie. The Colonel took no notice of the curious looks that were cast upon us, particularly me, but, after a word with the chief on duty, ushered me unceremoniously into the presence.
Charles was taking short turns up and down near the hearth, but stopped as I bowed before him.
"You've failed me!" he said bitterly.
"I have carried out your Royal Highness's commands exactly, though, to my deep regret, not punctually, but every hour I am late has been spent under arrest. In riding on your business, sir, I have ridden up to the foot of the gallows."
I spoke quietly but crisply, for I would not be girded at unjustly, no, not by a prince. He took my meaning, and answered generously, "As I knew you would, Master Wheatman, if need were."
The noble panelled room in which we were was set out with a long table and many chairs. At the head of the table a mean-looking man was busily writing. At the window two other men stood in earnest conversation, and these, as I learned later, were the Irishmen, Sir Thomas Sheridan and Colonel O'Sullivan.
"Leave your dispatch, Mr. Secretary, and come hither. And you, too, gentlemen!" said Charles.
So, with the Prince sitting near the fire and the four leaders ranged behind him, I stood and told my tale, cutting out all that was meaningless from their point of view. As I had expected, there was no mistaking its effect on him. I had indeed, come back empty-handed. Yet he pulled himself together and said lightly, "Well, gentlemen, if the men of the Midlands are not for me, they are certainly not against me."
"That is a strong point in your favour, sir," said O'Sullivan.
"When I've thrashed the Duke and got into London," said Charles, buoyed up at once by any straw of comfort, "they'll be round me like wasps round a honey-pot. I wasn't clear last night, but Master Wheatman has decided me. I ride into London in Highland dress."
"I applaud the decision of Your Royal Highness," said the foxy secretary. "It is a merited compliment to your brave clansmen." He afterwards ratted and so helped to hang some of the best of them.
"Now for your dispatch to the Marquis," said Charles, going towards the secretary's papers. "There's time to look at it before Murray and his supports arrive." O'Sullivan walked softly to one of the windows overlooking the square, and we followed him.
"Faith, Colonel," said he. "The game's up if we go on."
"It is," said the Colonel, tapping at his box. "Damn this rappee, Oliver. I'd as lief sniff at sawdust."
"But if the Prince wants to go on, I back him up," added O'Sullivan.
"So do I," said Sir Thomas.
"So do I," echoed the Colonel, "but, damme, I shall tell him the precise truth about the military aspect of the situation. One's my duty as a soldier just as much as the other. I haven't the least objection to dying, but be damned if I want my reputation to die with me. The most you can say of rappee, Oliver, is that it's better than nothing."
"That's just what I've been thinking, sir," said I, with equal gravity, "about my old hat."
"You're keeping that story for Margaret, you young dog, but she's bound to tell me. I was out of bed till two o'clock this morning, listening to her clatter about getting married quick, and walls of Troy, and ham and eggs. She nearly prated the top of my head off, and did not kiss me good-night till I'd told her for the seventeenth time that there was no need to worry about you. Seventeen times"--a vigorous sniff and a merry twinkle--"I counted 'em."
It was obvious nonsense, but it pained me.
"It was very kind of her, sir," I said at last.
"Humph!" said he, and turned to talk with the Irishmen. I kept a sharp look out on the square below, hoping for a glimpse of Margaret, paying no heed to the earnest conversation buzzing in my ear. Princes and dominions, and marches and battles, were nothing to me as I stood there fighting for mastery over myself.
I was pulled back from these slippery tracks of thought by the Colonel, who gripped my arm and whispered, "Here they come, Oliver."
I looked to the door and saw the chiefs filing into the room, led by Murray, with the greater ones immediately behind him and the others in due degree, till the room was fairly crowded. Charles continued his colloguing with Mr. Secretary while they disposed themselves according to their rank in council, though the Duke of Perth was pleased to take his stand on the hearth among some of the smaller sort. Sir Thomas Sheridan and Colonel O'Sullivan left us and seated themselves nearer the Prince, and when they had done so, and while there was still some noisy settling down to be done, I whispered to the Colonel, "Oughtn't I to go out now, sir?"
"I'm for going on to London," said he, grinning at me with his eyes, though he kept the face of a wooden image. "And first thing we do, Oliver, we'll lead a desperate attack, you and I, on a tobacco-man's. Damme! There's wagon-loads of Strasburg in London!"
"Suppose I start off now, sir, and mark down one or two of the primest."
"Suppose you stay where you are, lad," he replied. "You're here by rights: first, because the Prince asked ye here and has not dismissed you, and you never leave the presence of royalty till royalty kicks you out; secondly"--pausing to take a pinch of rappee that would have lifted the roof of my head off--"because you can't have less sense than some of these chatterers. Council of war! Mob of parliament-men!"
Thus it came about that, thanks to Swift Nicks, I was present at the great council which was to decide the fate of the Stuarts. I pushed behind the Colonel, so that I could now and again steal a peep for Margaret. Just at the last minute, with Charles lifting his eyes up to begin, the door opened again to admit Maclachlan, red with the haste he had been making. It made me grit my teeth to see him, for I knew why he was so hot. He had been fluttering around Margaret, and so had lost count of time. Then I stopped my gritting and started grinning. Much Margaret would think of a man who neglected his soldiering to dangle at her apron-strings!
His Royal Highness, after his usual habit, opened the Council by stating his own opinion.
"I have called you together, gentlemen," he said, "to consider our next step. The question is: Shall we march west, cut the Duke's forces in two, and so beat him, or, shall we take advantage of the fact that we are nearer London than he is, press on, and take possession of the Capital? I am strongly for the second plan."
"Damme, sir! Well put!" said the Colonel under his breath. And indeed it was so well put that the chiefs looked rather hopelessly at one another, for this was by no means the alternative that they had in mind. It was to them, as soon appeared, no choice between south and west that they had come to discuss, but the much more important choice between south and north. For a minute or two there was a muttering of Gaelic, which the Prince did not understand, at any rate, so far as the words were concerned. Then Lord George Murray rose, bowed profoundly to the Prince, and began the case for the chiefs.
"The Duke of Cumberland," he said, "was that night at Stafford with an army of ten thousand foot and two thousand horse. Mr. Wade was coming by hard marches down the east road and could easily get between His Royal Highness's army and Scotland. They had authentic news that an army was being encamped on the north of London. If, then, they marched to London they would have two armies in their rear and one in front of them, and, high as he rated the valour and prowess of the army he had the honour, under His Royal Highness, of commanding, it was vain to suppose that they could defeat three armies each at least twice as numerous as they. None of the advantages on which they had relied when they agreed to enter England had been realized. They had received no accession of strength worth considering from the English Jacobites; the population were not friendly but at all times surly and neutral, and on all possible occasions openly hostile; the promised French invasion had not even been attempted. Scotland they had won for His Majesty and could and should keep it for him. To do this required them to return with all speed and with undiminished forces. On all these grounds he, and those for whom he spoke, implored His Royal Highness to return thither and consolidate his forces for a fresh attempt under more favourable conditions."
His lordship had spoken calmly and with no outward sign of feeling except that, as he got toward the end of his speech and his drift became open and manifest, his voice gained more and more emphasis as he saw the undisguised impatience and growing anger of Charles. The Prince paid no courteous attention to the arguments of his chief military adviser, but shot eager glances round the ring of faces, and particularly at His Grace of Perth, who was visibly flattered by this mute appeal. The Colonel, who noted all this by-play, was nettled by the Prince's indifference to military authority, and whispered, "Well done, Geordie Murray! Right as a trivet!"
The speech done, the Prince struck his clenched fist on the table and said, "I am for marching on London."
It was plain, however, that the chiefs were against him almost to a man. Murray was clearly in the right, and his military skill and experience gave him great authority. As yet there was no open murmuring against the Prince; nothing but manifest determination not to be won over by his cajoleries or threats.
"Why should we not go on?" demanded the Prince passionately. "Here we are, masters of the heart of England. A quick, bold stroke, and London is ours. The game is in our hands."
"Game?" cried a rugged, headstrong chief, Macdonald of Glencoe. "The game's up, sir, thanks to these beer-swilling English friends of your house, who are Jacobites only round a cosy fire with mugs in their hands."
"They are only awaiting an earnest of victory," said Charles.
"Waiting for us to do the work," said Glencoe bitterly, "and then blithe they'll be to hansel the profits. We can gang back to Scotland as quick as we like when we've ance got London for 'em!"
There was a growl of assent from the chiefs, but silence fell again when the venerable Tullibardine, too racked with gout to stand, took up the word.
He spoke as one who had grown old and weary and poor in the service of the exiled House. The conditions of success, he said, had always been the same: the Highland adherents of His Majesty could never hope to be more than the centre around which the real sources of strength, English support and French aid, might gather; and these had failed now as they had failed in '15. "I dare not," he concluded, "lift my voice to urge men to take risks which I am too feeble to share."
Charles put up a stout fight, but it was no use. Chief after chief had his say, and then said it again and again. Maclachlan shifted from his place near the door to the corner of the hearth and, after whispering a while with the Duke of Perth, confusedly gave his opinion in favour of going back.
He was no sort of a speaker, being ill at ease, and plainly occupied in rummaging about in his mind. Having wits, however, he stumbled on a new line of argument.
"Then, sir," he said, "there is the great port of Glasgow to be taken in. There's more ready wealth there than in any other town in Scotland, and its moneys, public and peculiar, will give you the means of raising a great army for the spring."
"Any port in a storm," said the Prince, scowling at him.
Being a Stuart, Charles did not realize that every one of these chiefs was a king-in-little, accustomed to unfettered independence of action. There were curious contrasts in him, for he was as blundering and incapable in dealing with an assembly as he was sure and brilliant in dealing with a man by himself.
Feeling began to run high. One of the chiefs jerked himself on to his feet and harangued the Prince like a master rating an apprentice. He was almost as long and thin as one of Jane's line-props, and had high, jutting cheek-bones and jaws that snapped on the ends of his sentences like a rat-trap.
"I'm for gaein' back while the road's open behint us," he said. "If we dinna, and I get back at a', which is dootfu', I shall gae back wi' barely a dozen loons to my tail, an' the Cawmbells, be damned to every man o' the name, will ride on my back for the rest of my days."
"Ye're in the right of it, Strowan," said my Lord Ogilvie. "There's too few of us for this work, but a little peat will boil a little pot. Let us gang back and raddle the Glasgow bodies. Ye hae my advice, sir!"
Here the Prince, to my mind, made a fatal mistake. He had begun by trying to carry matters merely by the weight of his royal authority. This was ever his plan in council, and as long as things went well it served, since the chiefs, looking forward as they then did to ultimate triumph, were not willing to risk his displeasure by standing out against him. Now that they were in a tight corner this cock would fight no longer, and he made matters worse by appealing to the Irishman, O'Sullivan, for his opinion. He briefly gave it in favour of going on.
One tale will hold till another's told. O'Sullivan had a great reputation as a master of the irregular mode of fighting, which must be adopted by an army composed, like ours, of untrained men not equipped according to the rules and requirements of soldiership. But my Lord George Murray was ready for him.
"Great as Colonel O'Sullivan's reputation is, sir," he said sweetly, "we have with us in Colonel Waynflete another soldier of great distinction. His views would be welcome, sir."
"Yes, indeed," said the Prince eagerly.
"For myself, sir," said the Colonel, snuff-box open in hand, for he had been surprised with the rappee between his fingers, "I am ready to go on. I came to serve your Royal Highness, and I serve my commander as he chooses, not as I would choose myself. But when you ask me as to the military result of going on, I tell you frankly, as becomes a soldier of experience asked in Council to deliver his opinion, that it is idle to expect this present force to get to London. As you get nearer London, sir, the country becomes of a kind which your army could not successfully operate in. It would be confined to roads lined with hedges and passing through many defendable towns and villages. Your short, powerful charges would be out of the question. The English as a whole fight well, no men better; we can't rationally expect all of them to run off at a Highland yell, and with the country in their favour and London behind them, a source of constant fresh supplies to them, we should be wiped out in detail. Your Royal Highness wishes to go on, and therefore I am willing to go on, but your Royal Highness cannot capture London with the force at your disposal."
He finished and took his snuff with zest, seeing that it was still rappee, and handed me the box with great composure.
In all they talked and wrangled for three hours, and I got very tired of it all and spent my time looking through the window for Margaret. There would be no profit in setting down more of what was said. Indeed, no fresh point was raised until the Prince argued vehemently in favour of turning off for Wales, where his adherents were supposed to be very strong.
This produced a fresh crop of speeches, all on one note--the necessity of starting back for Scotland.
The Duke of Perth had been silent so far. He had stood on the hearth, near the fire, the warmth of which he stood greatly in need of, being slight and weakly. He had turned his eyes from one speaker to another as the debate went on, and had gently rubbed the back of his head against the panelling, as if to stimulate thought. The speech of Colonel Waynflete plainly had a great effect on him, and I could see that he was making up his mind, for he continued the gentle rubbing of his head but took no note of the wrangling and jangling about the Welsh project. The storm lulled, for it had blown itself out. Everything sayable had been said times out of number.
"I am for marching back at once," he declared in a loud voice.
I was heartily sorry for the Prince. In his mind's eye he had seen himself in the palace of his fathers with a nation repentant at his feet. He did not know England,--no Stuart ever did,--or he would have known that the wave of chivalry that had carried him so far was bound to spend itself on the indifferent English as a wave spends itself on the indifferent sands. Yet it was hard to go back, hard to know that he had done so much more than his grandfather in '89 or his father in '15, and done it in vain. His standard was proudly flaunting in the heart of England over the grave of his cause.
But he died well. "Rather than go back," he cried, "I would wish to be twenty feet under ground!"
With a wave of his hand he dismissed the Council.
"Slip out and look after Sultan," whispered the Colonel. "I am aide-de-camp to the Prince and cannot come. Take him to the 'Bald-Faced Stag' in the Irongate, to your right across the Square. You should find Margaret there, and Mr. Freake."
I was edging out in the tail of the procession when Mr. Secretary, moved thereto by the Prince, sidled up to me, his sly eyes overrunning the outgoing chiefs as he came. He laid his hand on my arm, which gave me the creeps, and said, "His Royal Highness would speak with you, sir."
He sidled back again with me behind him, wondering how far one fair kick would lift him. I stood stiff and awkward before the Prince, who, however, addressed the Colonel.
"Your speech was a shrewd blow to me, Colonel. Nay, don't protest! You did a soldier's duty by me in Council as you will do it in battle. I ask no more."
"And I shall do no less, sir," said the Colonel.
"Well, give me a pinch of snuff, and I'll ask your advice on another military point."
This was the straight way to the Colonel's heart, taking snuff and talking soldiership being to him the twin boons of life.
Charles took his rappee thoughtfully and then said, "What is the best way of dealing with a solid body of the enemy with inferior forces?"
"Split 'em up and smash 'em in detail, sir."
"What d'ye say to that, Tom Sheridan?" asked Charles.
"The oracle of Delphi could not have spoken better, sir," replied Sir Thomas.
"Damn your oracle of Delphi, you old rascal," cried the Prince, with great good-humour. "That's a crumb of the mouldy bread of learning you used to cram down my throat in the old days. It makes Master Wheatman writhe to hear it. The only advantage I ever got out of being a Prince was that old Tom here never dared thrash me for gulping up his rubbish."
"Master Wheatman knows Latin enough to stock a couple of bishops, sir," said the Colonel.
"The devil he does!" said Charles admiringly. "He'll come in handy for writing me a letter to His Holiness."
"It's not such bad stuff as all that, sir," said I, glad of a chance of saying something, for I had been hurt to the quick by talk that reminded me of how I had quizzed Jack's classics in Old Comfit's entry.
"To come back to the Colonel's advice," said Charles. "I've split 'em up and now I'm going to smash 'em in detail. We're not going back, sirs, if I can help it. Master Wheatman,"--and here he naturally and unaffectedly took on a princely tone--"we appoint you our assistant aide-de-camp, and desire your attendance on our person during the day, under the more immediate authority of our excellent friend, Colonel Waynflete."
At a sign from the Colonel, which I was lucky enough to see the meaning of, I dropped on my knee before the Prince.
"Thank you, Master Wheatman," said Charles, in his ordinary frank way, when I rose. "You're worth a hundred rats like young Maclachlan."
I coloured, partly with the praise and partly because I was wondering how many Smite-and-spare-nots I was worth.
I was then closely questioned about the lie of the land to the south of Stafford and Derby. After a long consultation, the Prince dismissed me, with a gracious invitation to be one of the Royal party at dinner, promising me, with a sly smile, that the company should be to my liking.
The Colonel and I withdrew. In the corridor he put me in charge of an upper servant of the household, and went to see to Sultan.
My new acquaintance was an elderly man of a solemn, soapy aspect, set off by a sober black livery and a neat wig. He took me up to a bedroom, and saw to my comfort.
"William, or whatever it is," I began.
"William it is, sir," said he.
"Do I look like an assistant aide-de-camp to a prince?"
He took stock of me, from my dirty boots to my bare head, and then said solemnly, "No, sir!"
"William," said I, "but that's precisely what I am."
"Yes, sir," he replied.
"Therefore this is precisely your opportunity, William."
"Yes, sir," said he.
"William," I went on insinuatingly, "I think you could, knowing this house so intimately as you do, make me look something like an assistant aide-de-camp to a prince. It's a tough job, William, but you'll do it. I can see it in your eye. By virtue of the power adherent to the assistant aide-de-camp of a prince, we hereby authorize you to do all things that may be necessary for the accomplishment of our purpose, and, when your task is over, you will, by a curious coincidence, find five guineas under yon candlestick. Life, William, is full of coincidences."
"Yes, sir."
"But not as full of guineas, William, as it should be. Set to work!"
Instead of going he stood there, gently washing his hands with imaginary soap and water, and finally said, "You will of course, sir, be very angry if I do not do as you bid me."
"I shall, William," said I, lathering away at my chin.
"I may take it, sir, that you'll blow my brains out if I don't."
"Blow your--Oh, I see! Certainly!" said I, tailing off from astonishment into understanding.
The quiet humour of the man was delightful. I fetched a pistol out of my pocket and added gravely, "William, unless I am, in appearance as well as in fact, a prince's assistant aide-de-camp in half an hour, I'll blow your brains out. Now clear out, while I have a bath!"
"Thankee, sir. It'll be all right now. My lord is, I should say, just of a size with your honour."
William was an artist and fitted me out with the nothing-too-much of exact taste. There were garments by the score that would have made a popinjay of me, but he knew better, and turned a sober young yeoman into a sober young gentlemen, and there's no harder task, as I have frequently observed since.
"Sir," said he at length, stepping back a few paces to con me over, "in any other man I should deplore the obstinacy-excuse my plainness, sir--which declines to wear a wig, but the general result, the tout ensemble, as my lord would put it, is agreeable."
"William," I replied, "you err through ignorance--excuse my plainness, William. The best Wheatman of the Hanyards that ever lived would have burned at the stake rather than wear a wig. I've done most of the other things he would have burned for, but I'll stick by him to this extent that I'll be damned if I'll wear a wig."
I never have, and it is no small measure due to me that the wearing of wigs is being left to lawyers and doctors, who, I understand, find it pays to look old and old-fashioned.
"Quite so, sir! A very proper sentiment," said William, with his eye on the candlestick. "It's family pride that keeps the great families agoing, sir, and they're the backbone of the Constitution, sir!"
After this high sentence, as I was ready to go, he gravely escorted me to the door and bowed me out. I dropped my ear to the keyhole and heard the chink of the guineas. William clearly had a very pretty appreciation of the best means of keeping himself agoing. A suaver, defter rascal I have never set eyes on.
I had already so much of soldiership as to know that it is well to master the ins and cuts and roundabouts of a strange house. If an emergency comes it may be the best guide to action. "Know your ground and win your fight," the Colonel used to say, and it's as true of a house as of a province. So I walked softly and watchfully about, and in doing so had turned sharp to the right to gain a view of the river and the gardens, when I came on the Lady Ogilvie. She was kneeling on a cushioned settle, resting her chin in her hands, and her elbows on the high back of the seat.
She turned to see who it was. Her face was clouded over, but the sun of her smile broke through in a flash, and she darted joyously at me.
"It's the incomparable one!" she cried, bubbling over with merriment. "Nay, I vow, it's the still more incomparable one. Losh, man, and ye look bonny! I'm telling it ye, and I've seen more bonny men than you've seen bullocks. Sit down and tell me where you've been and what you've done. Davie says you tell't him I was very, very guid. And so I am," she ended complacently, "and if any man says the differ...."
"He'll do well to keep out of Davie's road and mine," I cut in, as I was building up the cushions into a soft corner for her.
"You're an unco' guid lad," she said, wriggling into her nest, "an' if it werena for some one I ken I'd gie ye anither kiss."
I willingly admit that I wished Davie far enough, for she was a very dainty lady, with a mouth like an open rose-bud.
We had a long talk, for I told her all about my doings with ghost, thieves, thief-catchers, and baby Blount. She enjoyed it to the top of her bent. Then, when I had come to the end of my tale, she sobered all of a sudden, and said, "Oliver, what's going to happen to us?"
"I don't know," said I.
"There's something in the wind I dinna like. Davie's a' for ganging back. We women ought never to have come. Davie can think o' naething but me. As if I mattered a tup's head, the silly gomeril, bless him! Now there's your Maclachlan. He'd go to London if it was full o' deevils to fetch a stay-lace for Margaret, but he's a' for the homeward gait too!"
"The best military opinion is that it is hopeless to go on," said I.
"And I dinna think it's much better to gae back, laddie. It's a retreat. Ca' it what you like, you can mak' nae ither thing of it, and these Highland bodies, ance they retreat, will break to bits. Naething will keep the main of 'em taegither, ance they cross the Highland line again. Sae it's a black look out, Oliver, but I dinna mind ane wee bit. If I'd no been a Jacobite, I'd never hae met my Davie yonder. He's worth it a', is Davie."
"It's a hard task for any man to be worthy of your ladyship," said I, "but Davie's worthy if any man is."
"And Davie reckons you're fine," she replied, smiling. "Margaret pit him doon for three dances, and sat in a corner with him through 'em a'. I wonder the incomparable one's lugs"--I knew what she meant because she pinched one--"arena burnt off his head. You should hae seen Maclachlan ranting and raving like an auld doited tup!"
"It is pleasant to learn that Mistress Waynflete is so interested in my doings," said I, with as much coolness and aloofness as I could muster. I would at least keep my foolishness on my own side of my teeth.
"Unco pleasant, I hae nae doot," was her dry comment. And she set her red lips aslant as if she were swallowing vinegar.
I remembered my new function, and looked at my watch. I had long overrun the hour the Colonel had given me.
"Your ladyship will pardon me," said I, springing up, "but I'm overdue for duty."
"Duty?"
"Yes. His Royal Highness has appointed me assistant aide-de-camp to himself."
I spoke with much impressiveness but, to my chagrin, instead of the congratulations that were my due on such an occasion, she looked concerned and almost angry, and cried, "The very deil's in it!"
"I am sorry your ladyship is displeased," I said coldly. Scot clings to Scot, and she did not like it.
"Displeased, ye daft gomeril!" she retorted. "And I suppose you'll be pleased, and Margaret will shout for joy, if ye get a dirk in your assistant aide-de-camp's ribs ane o' these fine nights. Just understand ance for a', my friend, that a Highlander kills a man wi' as little compunction as an Englishman squashes a beetle. There's nane o' your law-and-order bodies beyont the Highland line."
"Nothing but common murderers!" said I hotly. "I have heard much of the virtues of the Highlanders of late, but this surprises me."
"Hoots! Murderers?" she cried. "No such silly Saxon whimsies. They've got as many virtues as any Englisher that ever snivelled prayer and shortened yardstick. Murderers! Hoots, my mannie! Just removers of difficulties!"
So she turned it off with a jest in her pretty way, and got up and jigged along the corridor with me after her, longing to jig it with her, but hobbled by my new dignity. I had no clear notion of an assistant aide-de-camp's duties, but felt that they required a certain solemnity of manner inconsistent with her ladyship's grasshopper ways.
In the end, she dancing and I lumbering along, we came on a cheerful group collected in the corridor below. There was the Prince, the Duke of Perth, the Lord Ogilvie, the two Irishmen, Mr. Secretary, the Colonel, a strange lady or two, and Margaret.
"I thought your ladyship was lost," said Charles, smiling.
"On the contrary, sir," she retorted, "I was found."
"The usual explanation," he commented lightly.
"A most unusual explanation, sir," she countered deftly, "for Mr. Wheatman has been explaining how it came to pass that he kissed a ghost."
"I never said any such thing," cried I, vexed to the bone.
"It wasna necessary," she said airily.
"Was it the ghost of a lady?" asked the Duke, who had been greatly amused by the dialogue.
"The question could only be asked," said Charles, "by one who has not the advantage of knowing Master Wheatman."
He laid a hand on my arm and drew me nearer. "My lord Duke," he went on, "I present to you the latest addition to my army, Mr. Oliver Wheatman of the Hanyards, the first-fruit, I am convinced, of a rich harvest from the gentry of his shire."
It was no plan of mine to cry stinking fish to a Prince who had engentried me in such distinguished company. "I'll have two blue stars and a jack in my coat-armour," thought I, as I bowed to the Duke, who made himself singularly graceful.
There was now a general movement down the corridor, headed by the Prince with one of the unknown ladies on his arm. There was no other formal pairing though Lady Ogilvie deftly snapped up the Duke as he was coming for Margaret, and thus left her to me.
She let the last pair get a yard or two ahead of us, and then looked at me, her eyes full of laughter, curtsied, and said, "Good morrow, Sir Kiss-the-ghost!"
"Good morrow, madam," said I stoutly.
She put her arm in mine and, as we moved off, whispered mockingly, "Sensible ghost!"
