V
THE HUE AND CRY
Languidly I came back to a world that faded and grew clear again mostpuzzlingly, that danced and jerked to and fro in oddly irresponsiblefashion. At first too deadly weary to explain the situation to myself, Ipresently made out that I was in a coach which lurched prodigiously andfilled me with sharp pains. Fronting me was the apparently lifeless bodyof a man propped in the corner with the head against the cushions, thewhite face grinning horridly at me. 'Twas the face of Volney. I stirred toget it out of my line of vision, and a soft, firm hand restrained megently.
"You are not to be stirring," a sweet voice said. Then to herself itsowner added, ever so softly and so happily, "Thaing do Dhia (Thank God.)He iss alive--he iss alive!"
I pointed feebly a leaden finger at the white face over against me withthe shine of the moon on it.
"Dead?"
"No. He hass just fainted. You are not to talk!"
"And Donald Roy----?"
The imperious little hand slipped down to cover my mouth, and KennethMontagu kissed it where it lay. For a minute she did not lift the hand,what time I lay in a dream of warm happiness. A chuckle from the oppositeseat aroused me. The eyes in the colourless face had opened, and Volneysat looking at us with an ironic smile.
"I must have fallen asleep--and before a lady. A thousand apologies! Andfor awaking so inopportunely, ten thousand more!"
He changed his position that he might look the easier at her, ahalf-humorous admiration in his eyes. "Sweet, you beggar my vocabulary. Asthe goddess of healing you are divine."
The flush of alarmed maiden modesty flooded her cheek.
"You are to lie still, else the wound will break out again," she saidsharply.
"Faith, it has broken out," he feebly laughed, pretending tomisunderstand. Then, "Oh, you mean the sword cut. 'Twould never open afterit has been dressed by so fair a leech."
The girl looked studiously out of the coach window and made no answer.Now, weak as I was--in pain and near to death, my head on her lap with herdear hand to cool my fevered brow--yet was I fool enough to grow insanelyjealous that she had used her kerchief to bind his wound. His pale,handsome face was so winning and his eyes so beautiful that they thrust methrough the heart as his sword had been unable to do.
He looked at me with an odd sort of friendliness, the respect one man hasfor another who has faced death without flinching.
"Egad, Montagu, had either of us driven but a finger's breadth to left wehad made sure work and saved the doctors a vast deal of pother. I doubt'twill be all to do over again one day. Where did you learn that mad lungeof yours? I vow 'tis none of Angelo's teaching. No defense would availagainst such a fortuitous stroke. Methought I had you speeding to kingdomcome, and Lard! you skewered me bravely. 'Slife, 'tis an uncertain world,this! Here we ride back together to the inn and no man can say which of ushas more than he can carry."
All this with his easy dare-devil smile, though his voice was faint fromweakness. An odd compound of virtues and vices this man! I learntafterwards that he had insisted on my wounds being dressed before he wouldlet them touch him, though he was bleeding greatly.
But I had no mind for badinage, and I turned my face from him sullenly.Silence fell till we jolted into the courtyard of "The Jolly Soldier,"where Creagh, Macdonald, and Hamish Gorm, having dismounted from theirhorses, waited to carry us into the house. We were got to bed at once, andour wounds looked to more carefully. By an odd chance Volney and I wereput in the same room, the inn being full, and the Macdonald nursed usboth, Creagh being for the most part absent in London on businessconnected with the rising.
Lying there day after day, the baronet and I came in time to an odd likingfor each other, discussing our affairs frankly with certain reservations.Once he commented on the strangeness of it.
"A singular creature is man, Montagu! Here are we two as friendly as--asbrothers I had almost said, but most brothers hate each other with goodcause. At all events here we lie with nothing but good-will; we are tooweak to get at each other's throats and so perforce must endure each theother's presence, and from mere sufferance come to a mutual--shall I sayesteem? A while since we were for slaying; naught but cold steel would letout our heat; and now--I swear I have for you a vast liking. Will it last,think you?"
"Till we are on our feet again. No longer," I answered.
"I suppose you are right," he replied, with the first touch of despondencyI had ever heard in his voice. "The devil of it is that when I want athing I never rest till I get it, and after I have won it I don't care anymore for it."
"I'm an obstinate man myself," I said.
"Yes, I know. And when I say I'll do a thing and you say I sha'n't nothingon earth can keep us from the small sword."
"Did you never spare a victim--never draw back before the evil was done?"I asked curiously.
"Many a time, but never when the incentive to the chase was so great asnow. 'Tis the overcoming of obstacles I cannot resist. In this case--topass by the acknowledged charms of the lady--I find two powerful reasonsfor continuing: her proud coyness and your defense of her. Be sure I shallnot fail."
"I think you will," I answered quietly.
Out of doubt the man had a subtle fascination for me, even though I hatedhis principles in the same breath. When he turned the batteries of hisfine winning eyes and sparkling smile on me I was under impulse tocapitulate unconditionally; 'twas at remembrance of Aileen that my jawsset like a vice again.
But as the days passed I observed a gradual change in Volney's attitudetoward the Highland lass. Macdonald had found a temporary home for her atthe house of a kind-hearted widow woman who lived in the neighbourhood,and so long as we were in danger the girl and her grey-haired friend cameoften to offer their services in nursing. Aileen treated the baronet withsuch shy gentle womanliness, her girlish pity struggling through theHighland pride, forgetting in the suffering man the dastard who hadwronged her, that he was moved not a little from his cynical ironicgayety. She was in a peculiar relation toward us, one lacking the sanctionof society and yet quite natural. I had fought for her, and her warm heartforbade her to go her way and leave me to live or die as chance mightwill. As she would move about the room ministering to our wants, wrappedin her sweet purity and grace, more than once I caught on his face a painof wistfulness that told me of another man beneath the polished heartlessMacaroni. For the moment I knew he repented him of his attempted wrong,though I could not know that a day of manly reparation would come to blotout his sin against her.
As we grew better Aileen's visits became shorter and less frequent, sothat our only temptation to linger over our illness was removed. One daySir Robert limped slowly across the floor on the arm of Creagh while Iwatched him enviously. From that time his improvement was rapid and withina week he came to make his adieux to me. Dressed point-devise, he was oncemore every inch a fop.
"I sha'n't say good-bye, Montagu, to either you or the lady, because Iexpect to see you both again soon. I have a shot in my locker that willbring you to mighty short one of these days. Tony Creagh is going toLondon with me in my coach. Sorry you and the lady won't take the othertwo seats. Well, au revoir. Hope you'll be quite fit when you come up forthe next round." And waving a hand airily at me he went limping down thestairs, devoid of grace yet every motion eloquent of it, to me a livingparadox.
Nor was it long before I too was able to crawl out into the sunshine withAileen Macleod and Captain Macdonald as my crutches. Not far from the innwas a grove of trees, and in it a rustic seat or two. Hither we threerepaired for many a quiet hour of talk. Long ago Donald had establishedhis relationship with Aileen. It appeared that he was a cousin about eightdegrees removed. None but a Highlander would have counted it at all, butfor them it sufficed. Donald Roy had an extraordinary taking way withwomen, and he got on with the girl much more easily than I did. Indeed, tohear them daffing with each other one would have said they had beenbrought up together instead of being acquaintances of less than t
hreeweeks standing.
Yet Donald was so clever with it all that I was never the least jealous ofhim. He was forever taking pains to show me off well before her, making asmuch of my small attainments as a hen with one chick. Like many of theWest country Highlanders he was something of a scholar. French he couldspeak like a native, and he had dabbled in the humanities; but he woulddrag forth my smattering of learning with so much glee that one might havethought him ignorant of the plainest A B C of the matter. More than once Ihave known him blunder in a Latin quotation that I might correct him.Aileen and he had a hundred topics in common from which I was excluded byreason of my ignorance of the Highlands, but the Macdonald was as sly as afox on my behalf. He would draw out the girl about the dear Northland theyboth loved and then would suddenly remember that his pistols neededcleaning or that, he had promised to "crack" with some chance gentlemanstopping at the inn, and away he would go, leaving us two alone. While Ilay on the grass and looked at her Aileen would tell me in her eager,impulsive way about her own kindly country, of tinkling, murmuring burns,of hills burnt red with the heather, of a hundred wild flowers thatblossomed on the braes of Raasay, and as she talked of them her blue eyessparkled like the sun-kissed lochs themselves.
Ah! Those were the good days, when the wine of life was creeping back intomy blood and I was falling forty fathoms deep in love. Despite myself shewas for making a hero of me, and my leal-hearted friend, Macdonald, wasnot a whit behind, though the droll look in his eyes suggested sometimesan ulterior motive. We talked of many things, but in the end we always gotback to the one subject that burned like a flame in their hearts--therising of the clans that was to bring back the Stuarts to their own. Theirpure zeal shamed my cold English caution. I found myself growing keen forthe arbitrament of battle.
No earthly Paradise endures forever. Into those days of peace the serpentof my Eden projected his sting. We were all sitting in the grove onemorning when a rider dashed up to the inn and flung himself from hishorse. 'Twas Tony Creagh, and he carried with him a placard which offereda reward of a hundred guineas for the arrest of one Kenneth Montagu,Esquire, who had, with other parties unknown, on the night of July first,robbed Sir Robert Volney of certain jewelry therein described.
"Highwayman it says," quoth I in frowning perplexity. "But Volney knows Ihad no mind to rob him. Zounds! What does he mean?"
"Mean? Why, to get rid of you! I tore this down from a tavern wall inLondon just after 'twas pasted. It seems you forgot to return thegentleman his jewelry."
I turned mighty red and pleaded guilty.
"I thought so. Gad! You're like to keep sheep by moonlight," chuckledCreagh.
"Nonsense! They would never hang me," I cried.
"Wouldn't, eh! Deed, and I'm not so sure. The hue and cry is out foryou."
"Havers, man!" interrupted Macdonald sharply. "You're frightening the ladywith your fairy tales, Creagh. Don't you be believing him, my dear. Thehemp is not grown that will hang Kenneth."
But for all his cheery manner we were mightily taken aback, especiallywhen another rider came in a few minutes later with a letter to me fromtown. It ran:--
Dear Montagu,
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends." Our pleasant little game is renewed. The first trick was, I believe, mine; the second yours. The third I trump by lodging an information against you for highway robbery. Tony I shall not implicate, of course, nor Mac-What's-His-Name. Take wings, my Fly-by-night, for the runners are on your heels, and if you don't, as I live, you'll wear hemp. Give my devoted love to the lady. I am,
Your most obed^t serv^t to command, Rob^t Volney.
In imagination I could see him seated at his table, pushing aside a scoreof dainty notes from Phyllis indiscreet or passionate Diana, that he mightdash off his warning to me, a whimsical smile half-blown on his face, agleam of sardonic humour in his eyes. Remorseless he was by choice, but hewould play the game with an English sportsman's love of fair play.Eliminating his unscrupulous morals and his acquired insolence of manner,Sir Robert Volney would have been one to esteem; by impulse he was one ofthe finest gentlemen I have known.
Though Creagh had come to warn me of Volney's latest move, he was also thebearer of a budget of news which gravely affected the State at large andthe cause on which we were embarked. The French fleet of transports,delayed again and again by trivial causes, had at length received ordersto postpone indefinitely the invasion of England. Yet in spite of thisfatal blow to the cause it was almost certain that Prince Charles EdwardStuart with only seven companions, of whom one was the ubiquitousO'Sullivan, had slipped from Belleisle on the Doutelle and escaping theBritish fleet had landed on the coast of Scotland. The emotions whichanimated us on hearing of the gallant young Prince's daring and romanticattempt to win a Kingdom with seven swords, trusting sublimely in theloyalty of his devoted Highlanders, may better be imagined than described.Donald Roy flung up his bonnet in a wild hurrah, Aileen beamed pride andhappiness, and Creagh's volatile Irish heart was in the hilltops. If I hadany doubts of the issue I knew better than to express them.
But we were shortly recalled to our more immediate affairs. Before we gotback to the inn one of those cursed placards offering a reward for myarrest adorned the wall, and in front of it a dozen open-mouthed yokelswere spelling out its purport. Clearly there was no time to be lost intaking Volney's advice. We hired a chaise and set out for London withinthe hour. 'Twas arranged that Captain Macdonald and Hamish Gorm shouldpush on at once to Montagu Grange with Aileen, while I should lie inhiding at the lodgings of Creagh until my wounds permitted of mytravelling without danger. That Volney would not rest without attemptingto discover the whereabouts of Miss Macleod I was well assured, and noplace of greater safety for the present occurred to me than the seclusionof the Grange with my brother Charles and the family servants to watchover her. As for myself, I was not afraid of their hanging me, but I wasnot minded to play into the hands of Volney by letting myself get coopedup in prison for many weeks pending a trial while he renewed his cavalierwooing of the maid.
Never have I spent a more doleful time than that which followed. For onething my wounds healed badly, causing me a good deal of trouble. Then tooI was a prisoner no less than if I had been in The Tower itself. Ifoccasionally at night I ventured forth the fear of discovery was alwayswith me. Tony Creagh was the best companion in the world, at once tenderas a mother and gay as a schoolboy, but he could not be at home all dayand night, and as he was agog to be joining the Prince in the North hemight leave any day. Meanwhile he brought me the news of the town from thecoffee-houses: how Sir Robert Walpole was dead; how the Camerons underLochiel, the Macdonalds under Young Clanranald, and the Macphersons underCluny had rallied to the side of the Prince and were expected soon to bedefeated by Sir John Cope, the Commander-in-Chief of the Government armyin Scotland; how Balmerino and Leath had already shipped for Edinburgh tojoin the insurgent army; how Beauclerc had bet Lord March a hundredguineas that the stockings worn by Lady Di Faulkner at the last Assemblyball were not mates, and had won. It appeared that unconsciously I hadbeen a source of entertainment to the club loungers.
"Sure 'tis pity you're mewed up here, Kenn, for you're the lion of thehour. None can roar like you. The betting books at White's are filled withwagers about you," Creagh told me.
"About me?" I exclaimed.
"Faith, who else? 'Lord Pam bets Mr. Conway three ponies against a hundredpounds that Mr. Kenneth Montagu of Montagu Grange falls by the hand ofjustice before three months from date,'" he quoted with a great deal ofgusto. "Does your neck ache, Kenn?"
"Oh, the odds are in my favour yet. What else?" I asked calmly.
"'Mr. James Haddon gives ten pounds each to his Royal Highness the Princeof Wales and to Sir Robert Volney and is to receive from each twentyguineas if Mr. K. Montagu is alive twelve months from date.' Egad, you'rea topic of interest in high quarters!"
"Honoure
d, I'm sure! I'll make it a point to see that his Royal Highnessand my dear friend Volney lose. Anything else?"
"At the coffee-house they were talking about raising a subscription to youbecause they hear you're devilish hard up and because you made such aplucky fight against Volney. Some one mentioned that you had a temper andwere proud as Lucifer. 'He's such a hothead. How'll he take it?' asksBeauclerc. 'Why, quarterly, to be sure!' cries Selwyn. And that remindsme: George has written an epigram that is going the rounds. Out of somequeer whim--to keep them warm I suppose--Madame Bellevue took her slippersto bed with her. Some one told it at the club, so Selwyn sat down andwrote these verses:
"'Well may Suspicion shake its head-- Well may Clorinda's spouse be jealous, When the dear wanton takes to bed Her very shoes--because they're fellows.'"
Creagh's merry laugh was a source of healing in itself, and his departureto join the Prince put an edge to the zest of my desire to get back intothe world. Just before leaving he fished a letter from his pocket andtossed it across the room to me.
"Egad, and you are the lucky man, Kenn," he said. "The ladies pester uswith praises of your valour. This morning one of the fair creatures gaveme this to deliver, swearing I knew your whereabouts."
'Twas a gay little note from my former playmate Antoinette Westerleigh,and inclosed was a letter to her from my sister. How eagerly I devouredCloe's letter for news of Aileen may be guessed.
MY DEAREST 'TOINETTE:--
Since last I saw you (so the letter ran) seems a century, and of course I am dying to come to town. No doubt the country is very healthy, but Lud! 'tis monstrous dull after a London season. I vow I am already a lifetime behind the fashions. Is't true that prodigious bustles are the rage? And while I think of it I wish you would call at Madame Ronald's and get the lylack lute-string scirt she is making for me.
Also at Duprez's for the butifull little hat I ordered. Please have them sent by carrier. I know I am a vast nuisance; 'tis the penalty, my dear, for having a country mawkin as your best friend.
Of course you know what that grate brother of mine has been at. Gaming I hear, playing ducks and drakes with his money, and fighting duels with your lover. For a time we were dreadfully anxious about him. What do you think he has sent me down to take care of for him? But you would never guess. My love, a Scotch girl, shy as one of her own mountain deer. I suppose when he is recovert of his wounds he will be down here to philander with her. Aileen Macleod is her name, and really I do not blame him. I like her purely myself. In a way quite new she is very taking; speaks the prettiest broken English, is very simple, sweet, and grateful. At a word the pink and white comes and goes in her cheeks as it never does in ours. I wish I could acquire her manner, but Alack! 'tis not to be learnt though I took lessons forever. The gracefull creature dances the Scottish flings divinely. She is not exactly butifull, but--well, I can see why the men think so and fall down in worship! By the way, she is very nearly in love--tho she does not know it--with that blundering brother of mine; says that "her heart iss always thanking him at all events." If he knew how to play his cards--but there, the oaf will put his grate foot in it.
She came here with a shag-headed gillie of a servant, under the protection of a Captain Macdonald who is a very fine figure of a man. He was going to stay only an hour or two, but _Charles_ persuaded him to stop three days. Charles teases me about him, swears the Captain is already my slave, but you may depend on't there is nothing in it. Last night we diverted ourselves with playing Hide the Thimble, and the others lost the Scotch Captain and me in the
armory. He is a peck of fun. This morning he left for the North, and do you think the grate Mr. Impudence did not buss us both; Aileen because she is his cousin a hundred times removed and me because (what a reason!) "my eyes dared him." Of course I was in a vast rage, which seemed to hily delight Captain Impudence. I don't see how he dared take so grate a preaviledge. Do you?
Aileen is almost drest, and I must go smart myself. My dear, an you love me, write to
Your own CLOE.
P. S.--Lard, I clear forgot! 'Tis a secret that the Scotch enchantress is here. You must be sure not to mention it, my dear, to your Sir Robert, But la! I have the utmost confidence in your discretion.
Conceive my dismay! Discretion and Antoinette Westerleigh were as farapart as the poles. What more likely than that the dashing little minxwould undertake to rally her lover about Aileen, and that the adroitbaronet would worm out of her the information he desired? The lettercrystallized my desire to set out at once for Montagu Grange, and fromthere to take the road with Miss Macleod hotspur for Scotland. It appearedto me that the sooner we were out of England the better it would be forboth of us.
I made the journey to the Grange by easy stages, following so far as Icould little used roads and lanes on account of a modest desire to avoidpublicity. 'Twas early morning when I reached the Grange. I remember thebirds were twittering a chorus as I rode under the great oaks to thehouse. Early as it was, Cloe and Aileen were already walking in the gardenwith their arms entwined about each other's waists in girl fashion. Theymade a picture taking enough to have satisfied a jaded connoisseur ofbeauty: the fair tall Highland lass, jimp as a willow wand, with thelong-lashed blue eyes that looked out so shyly and yet so frankly on thoseshe liked, and the merry brown-eyed English girl so ready of saucy tongue,so worldly wise and yet so innocent of heart.
Cloe came running to meet me in a flutter of excitement and MistressAileen followed more demurely down the path, though there was a Highlandwelcome in her frank face not to be denied. I slid from the horse andkissed Cloe. Miss Macleod gave me her hand.
"We are hoping you are quite well from your wounds," she said.
"Quite," I answered. "Better much for hearing your kind voices and seeingyour bright faces."
I dare say I looked over-long into one of the bright faces, and for apunishment was snatched into confusion by my malapert sister.
"I didn't know you had heard my kind voice yet," mimicked Miss Madcap."And are you thinking of holding Aileen's hand all day?"
My hand plumped to my side like a shot. Both of us flamed, I stammeringapologies the while Cloe no doubt enjoyed hugely my embarrassment. 'Tis asister's prerogative to teach her older brothers humility, and Cloe forone did not let it fall into neglect.
"To be sure I do not know the Highland custom in the matter," she wascontinuing complacently when Aileen hoist her with her own petard.
"I wass thinking that perhaps Captain Macdonald had taught you in thearmory," she said quietly; and Cloe, to be in the fashion, ran up the redflag too.
It appeared that my plan for an immediate departure from England jumpedwith the inclination of Miss Macleod. She had received a letter from herbrother, now in Scotland, whose plans in regard to her had been upset bythe unexpected arrival of the Prince. He was extremely solicitous on herbehalf, but could only suggest for her an acceptance of a long-standinginvitation to visit Lady Strathmuir, a distant relative living in Surrey,until times grew more settled. To Aileen the thought of throwing herselfupon the hospitality of one she had never met was extremely distasteful,and she hailed my proposal as an alternative much to be desired.
The disagreeable duty of laying before my lawyer the involved condition ofmy affairs had to be endured, and I sent for him at once to get it overwith the sooner. He pulled a prodigious long face at my statement of thegaming debts I had managed to contract during my three months' experimentas the prodigal son in London, but though he was extraordinarily severewith me I made out in the end that affairs were not so bad as I hadthought. The estate would have to be plastered with a mortgage, but someyears of stiff economy and retrenchment, together with a ruthless pruningof the fine timber, would suffice to put me on my feet again. Theexpenditures of the household would have to be cut down, but Mr. Briefthought that a modest esta
blishment befitting my rank might still bemaintained. If I thought of marrying----
A ripple of laughter from the lawn, where Aileen and Charles werearranging fishing tackle, was wafted through the open window and cutathwart the dry speech of the lawyer. My eyes found her and lingered onthe soft curves, the rose-leaf colouring, the eager face framed in asunlit aureola of radiant hair. Already my mind had a trick of imaginingher the mistress of the Grange. Did she sit for a moment in the seat thathad been my mother's my heart sang; did she pluck a posy or pour a cup oftea 'twas the same. "If I thought of marrying----" Well, 'twas a thing tobe considered one day--when I came back from the wars.