Ian Maclaren

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

“ And beside her, oh! fickleness of a woman’s heart, oh! irony of life, oh! cruelty to the most faithful passion, Colonel Livingstone, now my Lord Kilsyth. And an expression of fierce satisfaction lit up the Covenanter’s ghastly face.
“This then was thy revenge, Jean, for the insult I offered at Glenogilvie, and I was right in my fear that thy love was shattered. Be it so,” said Claverhouse, “I believe that thou wast loyal while I lived, and now, while I may have hoped other things of thee, I will not grudge thee in thy loneliness peace and protection. ”

“ I hope mine will not bring me again to Paisley Castle, where I am, as the hillmen would say, ‘a stumbling-block and an offence.’” Jean, glancing quickly at him, saw that Claverhouse was not mocking, but speaking with a note of sad sincerity.
“When you said a brief while ago that mine was work without glory, ye said truly. But consider that in this confused and dark world, in which we grope our way like shepherds in a mist, we have to do what lies to our hand, and ask no questions––and the weariness of it is that in the darkness we strike ane another. ”

“ Graham, I know what you think of me as clearly as if you had spoken. Let me say what I think of you. You are a gallant gentleman, full of the ideas of the past, and incapable of changing; you will be a loyal servant to your own cause, and it will be beaten. To you I owe my life. Possibly it might have been better for you to have let me fall by the sword of one of Condé’s dragoons, but we are all in the hands of the Eternal, Who doeth what He wills with each man. ”

“ I love you as a man should love a woman: altogether, your fair body from the crown of your head 166 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So it comes into my mind,” concluded Carlton, “to ask this question of you gallant gentlemen, Is courage what Sir Walter Raleigh calls it, if I mind me rightly, the art of the philosophy of quarrel, or must it not be the issue of principle and rest upon a steady basis of religion? I should like to ask those artists in murder, meaning no offence to any gentleman present who may have been out in a duel, to tell me this, why one who has run so many risks at his sword’s point should be turned into a coward at the whizz of a cannon ball?” ”

“ He was in the handsome uniform of his regiment, completed by a polished and gleaming breastplate over which his neckerchief of white lace streamed, while his face looked out from the wealth of brown hair which fell over his shoulders. His left hand rested on his sword, and Jean marked the refinement and delicacy of his right hand, which was ungloved, as if for salutation. The day had been cloudy, and the hall, with its stone floor, high roof, oaken furniture, and walls covered by dark tapestry, was full of gloom, only partially relieved by the firelight from the wide, open hearth. ”

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

“ Then, being no gentle and timid young wife who could be crushed by a savage and unexpected blow and find her relief in a flood of tears, but a proud and determined woman with the blood of two ancient houses in her veins, after the briefest pause she struck back at Dundee, carrying herself at her full height, throwing back her head with an attitude of scorn, her face pale because intense feeling had called the blood back to the heart, and her eyes blazing with fury, as when the 257 forked lightning bursts from the cloud and shatters a house or strikes a living person dead. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You were born of a good house, though it has taken an evil road in these days; you know the rules by which a man of blood should guide his life, and the things it were a shame for him to do, even to the man he may have to meet on the battle ground. Is it fitting, Scourie, to slander a fellow-officer to his commander, and so to pollute his fountain of influence that he shall not receive his just place? You have asked what I have against you; now I tell you, and I am ashamed to bring so foul an accusation against a Scots gentleman. ”

“ This is a woman full grown, not in stature only, but in character, of high ambition, of warm passion, of resolute will and clear mind, who is fit to be the mate for a patriot, in which case she would be ready to accompany him to the scaffold, or for a soldier, in which case she would send him to his death with a proud heart. Her mobile face, as flexible as that of a supreme actress, is set and hard when she enters the gallery, for she and her mother had just crossed swords, and Lady Jean knew for what end she had been asked to meet the Covenanter. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ See ye, Claverhouse, thou hast been killed from behind.” And Claverhouse saw where the blood, escaping from a wound near the armpit, had stained the grass. “Aye, some one of thine own and riding near beside thee found that place, and as thou didst raise thine arm to call thy soldiers to the slaughter of them who are contending for the right, thou wast cunningly stricken unto death. By a coward’s blow thou hast fallen, O valiant man, and there will be none to mourn thy doom, for thou hast been a man of blood from thy youth up, even unto this day.” ”

“ It is enough that the blood of our enemies be on our souls. I will not have the guilt of a fellow-officer’s death, or risk my own life in a private quarrel. I pray you let me pass.”
“It is your own life you are concerned about, Colonel MacKay,” answered Claverhouse, with an evil smile full of contempt, and in the quietest of accents, for he had resumed his characteristic composure, “your own precious life, which you desire to keep in safeguard.” ”

“ Why should she, a young woman with life before her, tie herself up with a hopeless cause, and one who might be called commander-in-chief of James’s army, but who had nothing to show for it but a handful of reckless troopers and a few hundred Highland thieves, a man whom all sensible people would be regarding as a mad adventurer? Would it not be a stroke of wisdom––the Whigs were a cunning crew, and he recalled that Lord Dundonald was an adroit schemer––to buy the future for herself and her child by selling him and returning to her old allegiance? ”

“ His voice never had that indescribable accent of eternity which thrilled Henry Pollock’s hearers, and was to them as a message from God, but Graham’s speech could turn from grave and courteous mockery, which was very taking in its way, to a gentle deference and respectful appeal, which, from a strong man with so dazzling a reputation, was irresistible to a woman’s heart. Then, no one could deny that his person was beautiful––a rare thing to say of a man––or that his manner was gracious, and Jean began to admit to herself that if he set himself he would be a successful lover. ”

“ MacKay has found a place between Collier and Venner, and as he sits leaning back against a saddle and to all appearance half asleep, the firelight falls on his broad, powerful, but rather awkward figure, and on a strong, determined face, which in its severity is well set off by his close-cut sandy hair. Although one would judge him to be dozing, or at least absorbed in his own thoughts, if anything is said which arrests him, he will cast a quick look on the speaker, and then one marks that his eyes are steely gray, cold and penetrating, but also brave and honest. ”

“ Ye have done me the chief honor a man can offer to a woman, Mr. Pollock, and Jean Cochrane will never forget that ye asked her in marriage. It cannot be, and it is better that I should say this without delay or uncertain speech, but I pray you, Mr. Henry, understand why, and think me not a proud or foolish girl. It is not that I do not know that you are a holy and a brave man, whom the folk rightly consider to be a saint, and whom others say would have made a gallant soldier. ”

“ If the Lowlands had been cold as death to the good cause, the Highlands had at last taken fire; if he had not one-tenth the army he should have commanded, had every Highlander shared his loyalty to the ancient line, he had sufficient for the day’s work. If he had spoken in vain to the king at Whitehall and miserably failed to put some spirit into his timid mind, and been outvoted at the Convention, and been driven from Edinburgh by Covenanting assassins and hunted like a brigand by MacKay’s troops, his day had now come. ”

“ It lingered but for a moment, and after touching his picturesque figure as with a caress, disappeared, and the eyes of John Graham and Jean Cochrane met.
They were the opposite of each other: he slight and graceful, she tall and strong; he dark and rich of complexion, with hazel eye, she fair and golden, with eyes of gray-blue; he a born and convinced Cavalier, and she a born and professed Covenanter; he a kinsman of the great marquis whom the Covenanters beheaded, and she on her mother’s side the daughter of a house which hated Montrose and all his works. ”

“ Nothing passed between them, and for weeks relations were very strained, but before the end Grimond knew that he had been forgiven for his superfluity of loyalty, and Dundee was thankful that, as the shadows settled upon his life blacker and deeper every day, one honest man was his companion, and would remain true when every fair-weather friend and false schemer had fled. One can make excuses for jealousy when it is another name for love; one may not quarrel with doggedness when it is another name for devotion. ”

“ For all men know that the Scots soldier has gone everywhere sword in hand, and whether he was in the body-guard of the King of France, or doing his duty for the Lion of the North, has never turned his back to the foe. And I am the more moved to ask an answer for the settlement of my mind, because as I have ever understood, the Scots more than our people are accustomed to go into the reason of things, and to argue about principles. It is not always that the strong sword-arm goes with a clear head, and I am waiting to hear what two gallant Scots soldiers will say. ”

“ Whether I was right or wrong, man, I had set my heart upon succeeding Ballantine, and I was imagining that maybe this very afternoon I could write home to my mother and tell her that her son was a lieutenant-colonel in the good Scots Brigade. But it’s all in the chances of war, and we must just take things as they come. Do ye know, Jock, I often think I was born like the Marquis, under an unlucky star, and that all my life things will go ill with me, and with my cause. I dinna think that I’ll ever see old age, and I doubt whether I’ll leave an heir to succeed me. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Ye wished for some weapon wherewith to take a coward’s life. Here is my sword, Jean, and here is my heart. I would not be sorry to die, and I would rather take the last stroke from you than from my enemies. It is not worth while to live, for I have no friend, and soon shall have no possessions. My cause is forlorn, and my name is a byword, and now, by my own doing, I have lost my only love. Strike just here, and my blood will be an atonement to thee for my sin, and generations 260 unborn will bless the hand which slew Claverhouse. ”

“ Mayhap it was not much he could do, but that was not his blame. He was thy husband for awhile, but I am thy man forever. Thou art mine and I am thine, for we are of the same creed and temper. I, John Graham of Claverhouse, and not Kilsyth, will claim thee on the judgment day, and thou shalt come with me, as the eagle follows her mate; together we shall go to Heaven or to Hell, for we are one. Slain we may be, Jean, but conquered never. We have lived, we have loved, and neither in life or death can anyone make us afraid. ”

“ 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 189 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. ”