Two days afterwards, towards six o'clock on a bitter evening, I rode wearily into Leek. I was having a hard apprenticeship in soldiering under a master who had no idea of sparing either me or himself. For the Colonel had accepted the post of second, under Murray, in command of our rear-guard, and had made it a condition of acceptance that I should be with him. Some thirty Highlanders, mostly Macdonalds, picked dare-devils, had been mounted and turned into dragooners, and I, thanks to the Colonel, had been made Captain over them.
"The lad's no experience, but he's got sense," he said to my lord George Murray.
"I ken him weel aneugh," said his lordship. "He threatened to knock my head off. D'ye ca' that sense, Kit Waynflete?"
"Since your head's still on your shoulders," said the Colonel, fumbling for his snuff, "I do. He knocked Maclachlan's Donald into a log of timber, and, damme, I hardly saw his hand move."
"That's only a trick, sir," I protested.
"Weel, Captain Wheatman," said Murray, "keep your ugly English tricks to y'rsel. Mind ye, colonel or no colonel, I'll break ye first chance ye gie me."
Maclachan was, I must say, very obliging and complimentary over my promotion. He gave me Donald to be my sergeant and personal servant, finding him, how I knew not, a horse strong enough to carry him easily.
"It is ferra guid," said Donald to his chief. "Er shall pe lookit to as if her were ma mither's own son."
To me, Captain Wheatman, clinking about in the corridor waiting for the Colonel, comes William, suave and confidential as ever.
"Well, William," said I. "Any more coincidences?"
"Yes, sir," said he, and began his hand-washing.
"You'll die a rich man, William."
"No, sir. This particular coincidence made me the poorer by, I should say," suspending his washing to calculate, "some five shillings."
"The devil it did! How was that?"
"Your honour's clothes that you left behind, sir, when you were transmuted, as my lord would say, were stolen."
"And you value them at five shillings! I ought to crack your head for you."
"Yes, sir. Cast-offs sells very cheap, sir. But the coincidence, sir! I've not really come to that yet."
"Go on, William! You interest me deeply."
"I found them, sir, at the bottom of the garden, torn to rags, sir!"
"And sold 'em for fivepence! Eh, thrifty William?"
"Sixpence, to be exact, sir!"
The Colonel rushed me off, but I found time to give the rascal a crown, which put him sixpence in pocket. A servant ought to have his vails, and, besides, William's concern amused me a good crown's worth.
This was late on in the night after the final decision to go back, and since then I had been scouting miles behind the main body of our rear-guard, so as to make sure that the Duke's horse were not on our track. I had slept by driblets as opportunity offered. Now, my purpose accomplished, I was looking forward to supper and bed, having left a patrol of fresh men some six miles back to watch the southern road.
There was one thing in my mind, however, that must be attended to first. I must see Mistress Hardy of Hardiwick. My heart ached for her, for I knew how sorely she would feel the retreat of the Prince. Moreover, the clansmen were not likely to discriminate between her and other townsfolk, and I would save her from disturbance. So, jumping off the sorrel, and giving him in charge to one of my men, I started for the little cottage. I was turning the corner out of the square when some one, running lightly behind me, placed a hand on my arm and detained me. It was Margaret.
"You've no need to trouble, Oliver," she said. "I've kept a room for you at the 'Angel.'"
"Thank you," I replied. "You are very kind, madam."
"Poof! Come along! You're so tired that you can hardly keep your eyes open to look at me. Come along, sir!" She was merrily pulling at my arm as she spoke. "I don't want to be obliged to return you every service, you know, sir!"
"No, madam! Certainly not."
"No, indeed, sir! I'm not going to put you to bed, except as the very last resource."
"Fortunately, madam, I'm a long way from needing that. In a few minutes I shall gladly take advantage of your care for me. First, however, I must see to our old friend to whom the Prince gave the brooch."
"We'll go together!" said Margaret, putting her arm in mine.
The cottage was dark and silent, welcome proof that she was undisturbed. I knocked gently, and, after a short delay, the door opened, and her woman appeared, candle in hand.
"I knew you'd come, sir," she said simply. "And this is your lady! Come in!"
Candle in hand, she paced ahead of us to the door of the room, and then stood aside, erect and solemn, to let us pass in. I looked at her closely. The worried, anxious look on her comely face had gone, and she was subdued, calm, and happy.
"Thank God!" she whispered. "She's at peace!"
I stepped ahead of Margaret into the fine old room, with its pleasant memorials of ancientry. There they were, just as I had seen them--scutcheon, portrait, glove, and pounce-box. There was no change in them; they were the abiding elements on which a strong soul had kept itself strong. But change there was. At the prie-Dieu, kneeling in a rapture before the Virgin Mother, was a solemn, black-robed priest. A narrow white bed was in the room. Two large candles burned steadily at its head, two at the foot; and on the bed, the linen turned down to reveal the thin, frail hands crossed below the Prince's brooch, lay the still, white form of our lady of the square. God had taken her to Himself. Death had caught her with a welcoming smile on her face, and, in pity and ruth, had left it there.
The Hardys of Hardiwick had given their last gift to the cause.
Tears were streaming down Margaret's cheeks. With shaking hands she removed her hat and, kneeling down at the bedside, clasped her hands in prayer.
"She talked no end about you, sir," whispered the serving-woman, "and about the beautiful lady with you. That standing in the cold square to see the Prince was the death of her. She would have her bed put down here, sir. She wanted to die here, with the old shield in her eyes, for she was proud of her blood, as well she might be."
"Yes," I whispered back. "She was the last of a great race."
"Aye, sir. She was that. She was a bit moithered in her mind, dear heart, just afore she went. The last words she said were a prayer for his soul,--her sweetheart you know, sir, that she lost sixty years ago,--just as I'd heard her pray thousands of times. But, poor thing, she got his name wrong. She called him 'John.'"
Choking, I threw myself on my knees beside Margaret, and prayed and fought, and fought and prayed again. Here, before me, I saw Death in the only shape in which it can give no sorrow--sinless age that had gently glided into immortality; and, with equal vision, I saw the black passage ... and the still twisted thing lying there in a patch of gloom ... my friend, gone in the pride of his youth ... his life spilt out in anger and agony ... and by me. Then the innocent hand of her for whom, though all unwittingly, I had done this thing, crept on to my shoulder, and I turned to look at her.
"Thank God we came, Oliver!" she whispered.
Before we could rise, the black-robed priest lifted his tall, gaunt frame slowly from the prie-Dieu. Standing on the opposite side of the bed he raised his hands in blessing.
"Our sister is with God," he said, his deep voice vibrant with emotion. "My children, you are, as I think, those who were much in her prayers at the last. I know not who you are, but, in her memory and in God's name, I give you in this life His Peace, and in the life to come the assurance of His Everlasting Blessedness. Amen."
He ceased. Gravely, and in a solemn silence, he knelt again at the prie-Dieu. We rose. First Margaret, and then I, kissed the Prince's brooch and the folded hands, and then stole out of the room. We were too awe-stricken to speak, or even to look at each other, but, as we went, she placed her hand in mine.
Weary days, full of hard riding and scouting, passed before I saw Margaret again. I was always in the rear, generally far in the rear, while she and the other ladies were, very properly, kept well ahead. She now rode in the calash with Lady Ogilvie,--the two being inseparable,--and Maclachlan was with them. My work was hard and anxious but it kept me from thinking overmuch. I put all my soul into it so that it should.
"The lad does very well, as I told you he would," said the Colonel to Murray one night when I rode in to make my report.
"I see no signs of my chance of breaking him," said his lordship grimly, but he would have me sup with him that night, and was very unbending and helpful.
There is nothing I need say about this stage of the retreat. It was well managed, and is, I am told, a very creditable piece of soldiership. It does not belong to my story but to history, to which I leave it.
Things did happen, however, that do concern me. The first was laughable though vexatious. This was the manner of it.
While the Prince was making the stage from Macclesfield to Manchester, and Murray and the Colonel were in force a few miles in his rear, I had to keep the country behind them well observed. I had one patrol within sight of Macclesfield, and others stretching out along an edge of upland country running westward to the next main road. I spent the night in a little wayside ale-house, and was having my breakfast next morning when I was disturbed by a succession of yells from without.
I ran into the yard and there was Donald, the rough head of one of my dragoons in each hand, banging them together, varying his bangs with kicks at any accessible spot, and shrieking at them in Gaelic, while they shrieked back and wriggled to escape. He stopped when he saw me, but still held them by the pow.
"What's it all about, Donald?" I asked.
"The loons! It's Glencoe 'erself sail hang 'em," he said breathlessly.
"What for? Out with it, Donald!"
"Yes, you gomeril"--shoving one of the men sprawling into the stable--"oot wi' it! Bring your tarn rogues wark 'ere!"
The man came sheepishly out with my saddle, cut and ripped and gutted till it wasn't worth a sou.
Strict and stern inquiry threw little light on the matter. I had my own suspicions, namely, of two licorous raffatags in the so-called Manchester regiment, whom I had handsomely kicked out of a roadside cottage where they were for behaving after their kind. They had been seen prowling about the curtilage of the ale-house the night before.
I went back to my breakfast. For a few hours I had to make shift with the saddle of one of my dragoons, but, after a short halt later on, Donald brought out the sorrel with a fine, and nearly new, saddle.
"Tat's petter," said he. "'Er sail ride foine now."
"This cost you a twa-three bawbees, I'll be bound," I remarked.
Donald grinned intelligently and I made no closer inquiry. The good fellow made me uncomfortable, for he would have slit the throat of the greatest squire along the road to get me a shoe-lace.
Early next morning his lordship sent me ahead into Manchester with a dispatch for the Prince, who had spent the night there. It was a welcome task, for it would, I hoped, give me at least a sight of Margaret. Instead of this sweet meat, however, I got sour sauce.
When I got there our army was beginning its onward march, and there were thousands of people about to watch the clansmen fall in, and little disguise they made of their feelings. As it happened, when I rode into the square, Ogilvie's large regiment was lining up, and he left it in charge of his major to come and talk to me.
"I'm wishing you'd come half an hour ago," he began. "Ishbel would ha' given much to see you, and so wad some one else, I'm thinking."
"Have the ladies started already?" I asked, with painful carelessness.
"Losh, man, Maclachlan has 'em up and away the morn in fine style. He's getting a very attentive chiel is Maclachlan, and I wonder ma Ishbel disna like him better than she does. There's too damn few of us to be spitting and sparring among ourselves."
"This is so, my lord," I said.
"I'm just plain Davie to ma friends," he said simply. "I'm no exactly a man after God's ain heart, like my Bible namesake, but I hae no speeritual pride where a guid man's concernit, and it ill becomes men who are in the same boat, and that only a cockle-shell thing, to be swapping off court terms wi' ane anither. They're aff, an' we mun step it out. An' I'm no really a lord."
"I want the Prince's lodging, Davie," I explained, as we walked on the causeway level with the head of his column.
"We march past it, an' I'll drop ye there. The young man takes it verra ill. The heart's clean melted oot of him. An' sma' wonder! See the sour, mum bodies in this town! When we came down there were bonfires an' bell-ringings, an' cheerings, an' mostly every windie wi' a lit candle, maybe twa-three, in it. The leddies, an' they're nae bad-lookin' lassies either, had bunches o' plaid ribbons in their bosoms an'--this I hae from Maclachlan--plaid gairters to their stockings."
In such talk we spent the way to the Prince's lodging, where I charged him to carry my greetings to the ladies. He wrung my hand in parting and, his major having halted the regiment, stepped proudly to the head of his men. I stood on the edge of the causeway, drew my sword, and stood at the salute, according to the courtesy of the wars. He returned the honour in like soldierly fashion, rapped out a command, and so passed on into the hungry North. It was the last I was to see of Davie, commonly called the Lord Ogilvie.
To my astonishment the Prince was not yet risen, and it was some time before he came to me in his day-room, where I was awaiting him. I rose and bowed as he entered, and gave him the dispatch.
"Curse your foul English weather, Captain Wheatman. It's getting into my bones."
This was, I fancy, only his way of excusing to me the nip of brandy he was pouring out.
"That's better!" he said, putting down the empty glass. "I have something to thank France for after all." He laughed at his own poor joke, but there was no ring of merriment in his laughter, and added, "Now for what my runaway general has to say."
He read the letter impatiently and sneeringly. "I suppose Mr. Secretary must write something back," was his comment. "It doesn't matter much what, since we're running away as fast as our legs can carry us. Any fool, or rogue, or Murray can run away."
He paced up and down the room with long angry strides, muttering words I did not understand. Suddenly he stopped, and turned on me with the smiling, princely face of the greater Charles I knew and liked.
"Curse me for an ingrate! I am heartily obliged to you, Captain Wheatman, for your pains. My lord speaks of you in high terms of praise. And I must not keep you. Murray must have his answer. Come with me, and Mr. Secretary shall take it down while I have my breakfast."
I followed him out and along a passage with doors on either side, outside one of which stood a servant or sentry, who had eyed me furtively on my coming inward. When he saw the Prince, he opened the door and thrust in his head, to announce our visit. He was clumsy, too, and, keeping his head round the edge of the door too long, bumped into the Prince, who rapped out an oath and flung him aside. As I followed Charles in, I caught a glimpse of the back of a man in a heavy mulberry wrap-rascal, guarded with tarnished silver braid at the cuffs and pockets, who was hastily leaving the Secretary's room by an inner door.
"Ha!" said Charles sneeringly. "More plots and politics! If I could be schemed into a crown, you'd be the man to do it."
"I must be acquent wi' what gaes on in the toun, your Royal Highness, an' ma man yonder's a rare ferret, but I didna think him worthy to be in the presence, sae I just bundled him oot."
"All your plotting and contrivings will not do you as much good as a glass of brandy. The climate's getting at you."
Indeed Mr. Secretary was all of a shake, and looked in a scared manner from the Prince to me and back again.
"It's naething but a little queasiness, such as we elder, bookish men are apt to get by ower-much application. Your Royal Highness is gracious to note my little ailments," said he smoothly. He had recovered already.
"Try brandy!" said Charles. "It settles the stomach fine. Well, come and take down a reply to this while I have some breakfast!"
The queasiness seemed to return, for Mr. Secretary was slow, captious, and argumentative, though the matter of the dispatch was only as to where the army should halt for a day's rest. At last Preston was decided on, and the dispatch written accordingly. I bowed myself out, jumped on the sorrel, and started for the Stockport road.
Our rear was closer up than usual this morning. Manchester, being a considerable town, was not to be cleared of our main of troops until the first column of the rear was in the southern skirts of the town. Outside the Prince's lodging, his escort of life-guards was now drawn up. As I rode along the edge of the market-square the Camerons were massing, and the streets adjacent were seething with clansmen.
I put the sorrel to it and was soon out in the low open country. After cantering a mile or so, I caught sight of two horsemen, well ahead of me, riding south at a round gallop. One of them wore a big mulberry wrap-rascal. It is no uncommon garment to see along a turnpike on a biting December day, but, ten minutes later, after they dropped to a walk to ease their horses up a slope, I saw the silver guarding round the pockets.
If this were the man I had seen hurrying out of Mr. Secretary's room, a look at him would be worth while, so I spurred after them. The clatter I made had the desired effect. At the top of the slope, wrap-rascal turned round. It was Weir, the Government spy. He squealed to his companion, who looked back in turn. My heart leaped fiercely at the sight of his seamed leathery face and dab-of-putty nose. It was the sergeant of dragoons.
Down the slope they raced, with me after them full tilt, proud as a peacock to be driving two men headlong before me, and one of them an old campaigner. It was my undoing. The road was lined with straggling hedges, and a long pistol shot ahead, a cross-track cut it. The sergeant was giving orders to the spy as they rode, and at the crossway the sergeant, shouting, "Shoot low!" turned sharp to the left while the spy made for the right.
It was a pretty trick, for it put me between two fires. I was on the spy's pistol hand as he turned, and he let fly at me, not out of calculated bravery, as his face plainly showed, but in a flurry of despair. The motive behind a shot, however, does not matter. It's the bullet that counts, and his got me just above the left elbow. I was up in my stirrups, aiming at the sergeant, who was pulling his horse round to be at me. I saw splinters fly from a bough to his right.
I had not looked to the spy. Now a shot rang out down the lane on his side. It was followed by a piercing shriek, and this by another shot. In between the shots, the serjeant wheeled round, and raced off down the lane for dear life, spurring and flogging like a maniac. It was useless to follow. My rein hand had lost its grip, my arm felt aflame, and blood was already dripping fast from my helpless fingers.
Looking down the lane, I saw Weir lying in the road, and a strange horseman climbing down from his saddle. I rode up to him.
"How d'ye do?" he said affably. "Sorry I could not get the other chap for you, but I meant having Turnditch. The dirty rascal has sent his last lad to the gallows. Faugh! I could spit on his carrion."
A glance to the road showed that he was right. The spy's blank, yellow face was turned upwards; his eyes, with the horror of hell still in them, stared wide-open at the sky. Just above his right eyebrow there was a hole I could have put my finger in.
"Damn my silly eyes!" cried the stranger. "You're winged, sir, and badly. It must be seen to at once."
He helped me down, took off my coat and waistcoat, and turned up my shirt-sleeve, doing all this deftly and almost womanly.
"Hurrah! Missed the bone and gone clear through! Put you right in no time! Plug down your finger there, sir, while I cut a stick. That's excellent. You won't mind if I keep you while I reload my barkers? The safe side, you know!"
With his handkerchief and my own, and a length of hazel for a tourniquet, he bound up the wound, and with much skill, for he at once reduced the flow of blood to a mere trickle. While he was busy over me, I took stock of him.
He was a man of about my own age and height, but slimmer and wirier. His features were rather irregular, but an intelligent, humorous look atoned for this defect, and his bright grey eyes were the quickest I have ever seen. Though an utter stranger, there was a puzzling familiarity about him, and I tried hard to recall which of my acquaintance featured him. His horse, now cropping at the roadside, was a splendid brown blood mare, the best horse, barring Sultan, I had seen for many a day. The last thing I noted was that the man was singularly well dressed.
"That's patched you up till you can get to a regular doctor. There's a first-class man at Stockport, opposite the west door of the church, Bamford by name. You can't miss his place, and he'll pocket his fee like a wise man ind ask no questions."
"You've done very well, sir," said I. "The blood has almost ceased to flow. I'm greatly beholden to you."
"Say no more!" he cried earnestly. "It's a boon you've conferred on me, if you only knew it. Nemo repente turpissimus, as we say."
"Video proboque, as we also say," I countered, smiling.
"Oddones! A brother of the lamp!" he cried, laughing shortly, and suddenly sobering. "I must be on. Sorry to leave you, sir, but I think you're all right. Take care, however. I was touched myself t'other day, and the damned hole in my ribs still bleeds if I exert myself too much."
"You should surely be in bed, if there's a hole in your ribs."
"In bed!" he sniffed. "I took to bed, egad, and nearly got pinched. Now I've no need for exertion. In this gap between the Highlanders, I'm as snug as a flea in a blanket."
After helping me into my clothes and on to my horse, he strolled up to the dead man.
"Well, Turnditch," he said, "you know everything now, or nothing." Then, dropping lightly on his knee, he turned gaily to me, and said, "Always plunder the Egyptian, dead or alive."
He rifled the spy's pockets with the easy indifference of an expert, singing as he turned them out:
"The priest calls the lawyer a cheat;
The lawyer beknaves the divine;
And the statesman because he's so great,
Thinks his trade is as honest as mine."
He stopped his singing and, tossing a well-stuffed leather bag up and down in his hand, said, "There's really no objection to virtue when the jade is not her own reward. Chunk! chunk! There's alchemy for you! Half an ounce of lead into half a pound of gold!"
He stowed the bag in his pocket, jumped on his mare, and together we walked our horses to the turnpike, where we halted side by side, our horses' heads to their respective destinations.
"Sir," said I, holding out my hand, "I am greatly in your debt. My name is Oliver Wheatman, of the Hanyards, Staffordshire. May I have the pleasure of learning yours?"
He took my hand, looked at me intently, with his grey eyes very thoughtful and steady, and then said quietly, "Samuel Nixon, Bachelor of Arts, sometime Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford."
"Commonly called 'Swift Nicks,'" I added, smiling.
"Right first time," he cried gleefully, and shot off like an arrow towards Manchester.
So Nance Lousely had not got her pinnerfull of guineas after all.
