CHAPTER XV
IN THE MOORLANDS
I was in bed, there was no doubt about that, and a strange sort of bedtoo, for it moved lightly and deliciously through the keen, open air likethe magic carpet of the Eastern tale. The bedposts at my feet were mostcuriously carved into life-like images of warriors, so life-like, indeed,that when the one on the right turned its shaggy head and spoke to the oneon the left, I was not shocked and scarcely surprised. Bed it was,however, for mother's soft, smooth hand was on my cheek, and under thebalm of its touch I went off to sleep again.
When my eyes opened again, the mists had cleared out of them and I was nolonger in the land of shadows. The carven bedposts were Highlanders; thebed was a litter slung between four of them; the touch was hers. Somebodyspoke, the Highlanders came to a halt, and Margaret bent over me. Her facewas pale, grave, and anxious.
"Are you better, Oliver?" she whispered.
"As right as rain," I answered, pushing my new trouble behind me andspeaking stoutly because of the whiteness of her face.
"Try to sleep again. You've had a bad fall, and there's an ugly cut inyour skull."
"Indeed, I'll do no such thing," was my reply. "I don't want carryinglike a great baby, and I do want my breakfast. I'm as empty as a drum."
"Can you stand?"
"Sure of it, and also hop, skip, jump, and, above all, eat and drink withany man alive. So, if you can make these men-women understand you, tellthem I'm very grateful, but I've had enough."
The four tousled warriors were easily made to understand what I wanted,and, stout and strong as they were, welcomed the end of their labours withbroad grins of satisfaction. They lowered me to the ground, andimmediately Margaret's hands were outstretched to help me to my feet. Butfor the black death between us, it would have been new life indeed to seethe colour and sunshine creeping back to her face, and to hear herwhispered "Thank God!"
My head was bumming and throbbing, but nothing to speak of. The gash wasbehind and above my right ear, so I must have somersaulted down thestairs. Margaret, as I learned later, had bathed and bandaged the wound,and after my recovery of consciousness, it only gave me the happy troubleof persuading Margaret that it gave me no trouble.
I stamped and shook myself experimentally, took a few strides, and jumpedonce or twice, Margaret watching me as curiously and carefully as a henwatches her first chicken.
"Do mind, Oliver!" she said. "It bled horribly, and you'll start it again."
"I believe I needed a blood-letting," said I.
"Should you ever need another," she said crisply, "I hope you'll take itin the usual way. How did it happen?"
I had steeled myself for the inevitable question, and so answeredruefully, "I must have tripped over the domino."
"If it were not your mother's I would never wear it again," she said,plucking the skirt of it into her hand and shaking it as if it were anaughty child. "I thought you would never come round. For nearly an hour,I should think, you looked stone-dead. Then you just opened your eyes, butclosed them before I dared speak, and lay so at least another hour. Youhave given me such a fright, sir, that, now you are up and about again,I'm beginning to feel I have a grievance against you."
"I'm sorry, madam," said I, very soberly.
"Now you're laughing at me, sir," was the brisk reply.
The word made me shiver. "Laughing"--over Jack's body! Margaret was inher stride back to her mistress-ship again yet her eye changed instantlywith her mood when she saw me wince. Indeed, her mind flashed after mymind like a hawk after a pigeon, but I dodged the trouble by lookingcasually around to examine our whereabouts.
We were following a track down a dip in an open moorland. Across theshallow valley, and climbing the slope ahead of us, was another small bodyof Highlanders, whom I took to be our scouting party. The sun was a dimblob in the sky, and I saw from its position that our direction waseasterly. A joyous hail from behind made me spin round, whereupon I sawthe Colonel on Sultan and the young Chief on the sorrel turning the browbehind us. It took them a few minutes to trot down to us, and before theyreached us four more wild warriors, our rear-guard apparently, came inview. One of them was my son of Anak, astride Margaret's mare, and solooking more gigantesque than ever.
"Good morning, commander!" was the Colonel's greeting. "Slids! But I'mglad to see you on your feet again. How's the head?"
"It still bumbles a bit," said I, "but, truth to tell, I'm thinking moreof my breakfast than my head. I'm as empty as a drum."
"It's a guid prognostick to feel hungry after sic a crack o' the head,"said the chieftain, smiling, and I thought with a twinge what a handsome,wholesome sight he made.
"I'm another drum," said the Colonel, "but deuce take me, Oliver, if Iknow how we're to be filled. Madge would have us start off with you atonce, quite rightly too, and we'd neither bite nor sup before we took theroad."
"And where were you taking me?" cried I.
"To the doctor's," explained the Colonel. "There's one in a villagetucked away somewhere among these hills, and we've a lad on ahead to guideus. Colonel Ker, who commands the Highlanders who rescued us, gave us ourfriend here, Captain Maclachlan in the Prince's army, and a greatchieftain among his own people"--here the chief and I bowed to one another--"anda dozen or so of his stout men as an escort. Two plaids were knittedinto a litter, a log of a man named Wheatman was bundled into it, and offwe started breakfastless, as I said before."
"I'm very grateful to you, Mistress Margaret," said I.
"Don't be silly!" she answered very sharply. "It is no praise to tell meI acted with common decency. And you weren't bundled in!"
"I was not praising you, madam," I retorted, quick as ever to return likefor like. "I was thanking you, and I venture, with respect, to thank youagain."
"Bother old Bloggs!" she said, suddenly all of a glow.
"Bloggs? Who's Bloggs?" asked the Colonel, plainly enjoying the fun.
"A rascally schoolmaster," she explained, "who flogged Oliver into aprecision of speech which I find most trying. But I must not miscall thedear old man, for I stole his supper."
"I wish he'd flogged him into precision on a staircase," said theColonel. "Damme, I am hungry."
"I'm thinking there'll be a dub of water in the bottom yonder," said thechieftain, "and Mistress Waynflete shall, if she will, take her first mealHighland fashion."
As I firmly declined to be carried another yard, the Highlanders unmademy litter and resumed their plaids. In the trough of the valley we found astreamlet of clear sweet water, and our repast consisted of a handful ofoatmeal, of which every clansman carried a supply in a linen bag, stirredin a horn of water. It was not our Staffordshire notion of a breakfast,but it was better than nothing.
"Water-brose is a guid enough thing at a pinch," said Maclachlan toMargaret, "guid enough to take a big loon like yon Donald to London andback."
Donald, it appeared, liked an addition to it, notwithstanding his chief'spraise of it, for he was taking a long pull from a leather bottle. This,he explained, was usquebaugh, "ta watter of life," and the spice of poetryin the description tempted the Colonel and me to try a dram. The Colonelprobably had had worse drink in his time, but even he made no comment. Iwould almost as lief have had a blank charge fired into my mouth.
While we all took our brose, and Maclachlan squired Margaret, the Coloneltold me how it had happened that the Highlanders chanced to come to ourrescue in the very nick of time. My own trouble is to get my tale straightand simple, and I have no intention of making a hard task harder by tryingto interweave with the threads of my own story a poor history of theseimportant days. Mr. Volunteer Ray saw much more of these things than everI did, and the curious reader may turn to his fat, little, brown volumefor particulars. He was on the other side, and is too partial for aperfect historiographer, but the account of things is there, andreasonably well done too. But as what happened to Margaret, the Colonel,and me, happened because of the campaign of the rival armies, I must boildown wh
at the Colonel told me if I am to make my tale clear. The Colonel,to his credit, as I think, was so enthusiastic over all matters militarythat he was rather long-winded in his account, and, in like fashion withour housewifely Kate, it behoves me, so to speak, to make a jar of jellyout of a pan of fruit, which is easier done with crab-apples than words.
According to the Colonel, one of the master maxims of the military artis, "Find out what the enemy thinks you are going to do, and then don't doit." My Lord George Murray, the Prince's chief adviser in militarymatters, had acted on this plan, and had given the go-by to the Duke ofCumberland in grand style. At Macclesfield, the traveller to London hadchoice of two high roads, one through Leek and Derby, and the otherthrough Congleton and Stafford. Leaving the Prince at Macclesfield withthe bulk of his men, Murray had pushed with a big force as far asCongleton on the Stafford road, and the news of his advance had madeCumberland withdraw all his northerly outposts to his head-quarters atStone. It was the last body of horse, routed out of Congleton, which wehad watched from the pines last night, racing in fear and disorder back tothe main of their army. Before daybreak Murray had sent on a force ofHighlanders under Colonel Ker towards Newcastle, to maintain the illusionthat the Stafford road was the one the Prince would take, and the vanguardof this force, under Maclachlan, had saved us at the "Red Bull." Murrayhimself was marching from Congleton across country to Leek, while thePrince was marching thither also from Macclesfield. Murray would be therefirst, and did not mean to wait for the Prince, but to push on as far aspossible towards Derby. We, too, were bound for Leek, where we should besafe at last, and the end of the Colonel's explanation came, not becausehe had said all he could have said, but because Donald was yelling to theclansmen in preparation for our retaking the road.
Maclachlan accepted with alacrity an offer I made to go ahead and joinour advance. He ordered Donald to accompany me, giving as his reason: "Forhe kens the English fine when the spirit of understanding is on him, andye'll easy get it on him by raxing him a crack in the wame, same as ye didback yonder at the yill-house."
The Highlander maintained the expression of a wooden doll throughout thisexplanation, but, as I leaped hard after him across the brook, I overtooka grin on his face that promised well for my future entertainment.
"She pe recovert," he said. "Tat was a foine shump."
Before I could reply Margaret was upon us.
"The mare is quite frisky. She thinks me a mere _fardello_ afterDonald. You're sure you're all right, Oliver?"
"So near right, madam, that I beg you not to worry about me further,"said I.
"Worry about you or worry you?"
It hurt me to have her go so chilly all of a sudden, but I repliedfrankly, "Both. It does indeed worry me to have you breakfastless in thesewilds through my doings."
"Yes," she said, smiling down on me, "I ken fine the distinction betweenwater-brose and ham and eggs."
"We are still in Staffordshire," I said cheerily, "and I'll go ahead andsee what I can do for you. Now, Donald, your best foot first!"
He and I started ahead again, leaving her waiting for the rest of theparty, detained by some explanation on the Colonel's part of the militaryaspects of the lie of the land.
"There's a wheen foine leddies wi' ta Prince, Got bless him," saidDonald, "but when yon carline gets amangst 'em she'll pe like a muircockamangst a thrang o' craws. She'll ding 'em a'."
I expected that Donald would cherish ill will to me for my blow, but inthis I was wrong. So far from bearing me a grudge, he quite obviouslyliked me for it. He had a fist, or nief, as he called it, nearly as big asa leg of lamb, and almost the first thing he did when we were alone was tohold it out, huge, dirty, and hairy, and put it alongside mine. Hescratched his rough head in his perplexity.
"At Gladsmuir," he said, "'er nainsell did take ten Southron loons wi''er own hant, wi' nobody to help 'er, an' now one callant had dinged 'erclean senseless wi' nothin' but a bairn's nief."
"It wasn't clean fighting, Donald," said I. "Nothing but a sort of trick.If you were to hit me fair and square I should snap in two like a carrot.Tell me how you captured the ten men!"
It was a longish story, at any rate as he told it, in quaint uncertainEnglish, intermixed with spates of his own Gaelic as he got excited overthe account of his prowess. One of them was an officer, and Donaldfinished up by ferreting out of his meal-bag a magnificent gold watch,lawful prize from his point of view, taken out of the officer's fob.
"Ta tam t'ing was alife when I raxed 'er out of 'is poke," he said, "but'er went dead sune after. She can 'ave 'er for a shillin'."
He had no idea, nor could I make him understand, what it was and whatpurpose it served. When it had run down for want of winding, to his simplemind it had 'died.' He pushed it into my hand as indifferently as if ithad been a turnip, and I promised to pay him at Leek, for my pockets wereempty again and Margaret had the bag.
"'Er nainsell wad rather 'ave a new pair o' progues," said he. "And whatfor does anybody want a thing tat goes dead to tell ta time wi'? T'ere'sta sun and ta stars, tat never go dead."
As we walked rapidly we overtook our party soon after settling the matterof the watch. The plough-lad who had been pressed as guide told me we werenear the road to Leek, and I let him return. We dropped down to a roughroad running our way, and a mile or so along it the roofs of a villagecame in sight, and we halted till the main body came up.
"What is it, Oliver?" asked the Colonel.
"Breakfast, sir," said I.
We marched into the village in military array. At our head strode Donald,stout of heart and mighty of hand, with two pipers skirling away at hisheels, and the clansmen stepping it out bravely two abreast behind them.Margaret came next, with me at her mare's head, and the Colonel andMaclachlan brought up the rear.
Our arrival created as much stir as an earthquake. The Highlanders, intwos and threes, swarmed into the houses and ordered their unwilling hoststo prepare them a meal. That it was war I was engaged in was, for thefirst time, brought clearly home to me when I saw a fearsome Highlander,with claymore, dirk, and loaded musket, posted at each end of the village.A touch of ordinary human nature was, however, added, when the children,fearless and happy in their ignorance, sidled up to the sentries andstared at them as eagerly as if they had been war-painted Indians in atravelling show.
At first, we, the gentry for short, intended to seek accommodation in theinn, poor and shabby though it looked, and Donald was ordered thither togive instructions. The Colonel and the chieftain rode along the village toobserve how things were going, and this left Margaret and me together, andspectators of a delightful little passage. For as Donald approached theinn-door, the hostess, a sharp-nosed, vixenish woman, charged at him witha very dirty besom and routed him completely. Truth to tell, Donald, whohad the sound, sweet nature of a child, had all the natural child'sindifference to dirt, but even he, long-suffering in such matters as hewas, had to stop to scrape the filth out of his eyes. This gave me thechance of making peace, and I went up and explained that we should pay foreverything like ordinary travellers, good money for good fare.
"Oh aye!" she said.
"Jonnock!" said I.
"You're a Stafford chap," she asserted.
"I am," I agreed, "and I'll see you done well by."
That settled her, and Donald was settled too, for his immediate wantswere satisfied by a large glass of brandy, and those more remote by abucket of water and a towel.
"Gom!" said the virile little woman to me, "a wesh'll do him no harm.I've got the biggest gorby of a mon," she went on, "between Mow Cop andthe Cocklow o' Leek. He's gone trapesing off, with our young Ted on hisshoulders, to see yow chaps march into Leek. There's about a dozen on 'emgone, as brisk as if they were goin' to Stoke wakes. Fine fools they'lllukken when they comes whom to-nate."
As it happened, the "Dun Cow" was after all left to Donald and thepipers. When I rejoined Margaret, she said, "Pray help me down, Oliver,and we'll find the doctor, and have him
dress your head. And, once out ofDonald's sight, I'll have the laugh that's nearly killing me to keepunder."
I helped her down, and said, "Never mind doctor! That fine old churchyonder must be well worth looking into."
"You will mind, sir," she flashed. She beckoned to Donald to take chargeof her mare, and then waylaid a passing girl, running from one sentry tothe other, and got her to show us the doctor's.
So we started thither, and as we went she said, "Really, Oliver, you areinconsiderate at times."
"Nonsense," said I. "It's my head."
I was angry, not at her words, for I knew she did not mean them, but atmy inability to see what the fascinating jade was driving at.
"Inconsiderate," she repeated firmly. "You'd be content to be introducedto the Prince with a great swathe of dirty, blood-stained linen round yourhead, regardless of how it reflected on me."
"Reflected on you?" I echoed blankly.
"Yes. We shouldn't match. I suppose dear old Bloggs was a bachelor?"
"He was," said I, resigning the contest in despair.
The doctor lived in a fair-sized stick-and-wattle house. He was a dapperlittle man, with a cleverish, weakling cast of face, and was all on thejump with the turn things had taken. He had just opened the door to us,and was eyeing us uncertainly, when the Colonel and the Chief, returningon foot from their inspection, having left their horses to be baited underthe watchful eye of a Highlander, stopped beside us.
"Are you the doctor?" asked Margaret promptly, as if to forestall anybacking out on my part. If I could have joyed at anything, I should havebeen overjoyed at her keenness in having me seen to.
"Yes," he said, but very softly.
"Then please attend to this gentleman's wound," she said.
"Is he a rebel?" he asked, so loudly that he might have been talking tosome one across the street, and instinctively I turned round There, sureenough, was the parson, a pasty, pursy, mean-looking rogue, coming acrossto see what was doing.
"It's his head I want you to attend to," retorted Margaret, "not hispolitics."
"I doctor no rebels," said he, louder than ever.
"Man," intervened Maclachlan, taking a pistol from his belt, andemphasizing his words by gently tapping its barrel on the palm of hishand, "if in ten minutes yon head isn't doctored to pairfection, it's yourown sel' will be beyond all the doctoring in England."
"It's against all law," said the doctor.
"I'm the law in this clachan to-day," said Maclachlan simply, stilltapping away with his pistol. Hearing the parson behind, he turned roundand added drily, "And the gospel." Hereupon the parson's face took on theappearance of ill-made, ill-risen dough, and he turned and slipped offwith creeping, noiseless steps, like a cat.
"Come in," whispered the doctor.
"Ye're a man o' sense," said Maclachlan, and pushed his pistol back intohis belt.
We all passed into the hall, and the doctor made the door carefully.
"That damned pudding-face is a Whig," said he, "and so, of course, he's aJustice. The Squire's a Whig, and he's a Justice. Here am I, well-reputedin the faculty, and my wife coming of the Parker Putwells, one of the rareold county stocks--none of your newfangled button-men and turnip-growers--andI'm no Justice, because I'm a Church-and-King man of the oldschool."
"They went out of fashion with flaxen bobs," said I.
"Come on, my tousled macaroni!" said he. "There's nothing the matter withthe inside of your head at any rate, though the outside looks as if you'dbeen arguing with the parish bull."
"This is a verra fine house," said Maclachlan slowly and slily.
"A mere dog-kennel," said the doctor, "considering she's a Parker Putwell."
"And I'm thinking," said Maclachlan, very thoughtfully "that there'll besome guid victuals in the pantry and, mayhap, a gay wheen bottles of rightliquor in the cellar."
"Oh aye!" said he, taken aback.
"Then I'm thinking we'll e'en have breakfast here and try their merits.And if it's a guid ane, I'll see you a Justice, whatever that may be, whenthe King enjoys his own again. A Maclachlan has spoken it."
The doctor went to an inner door and bawled, "Euphemia," and adiscontented wisp of a woman answered his call.
"Madam and gentlemen, my wife, Mistress Snooks, born a Parker Putwell.Mistress Snooks, like me, will bow to your will with pleasure, nor willyou mislike her table, I assure you. Now, my buck, let's see to this crackin your head."
He took me into his druggery, unwrapped the bandage, and examined my wound.
"So ho!" said he, "a right good sock on the head. How did it happen?"
I told him.
"It's lucky for you, my buck," he said, "that you've got a baby's fleshand a tup's skull, and some one had the sense to wash the cut clean assoon as it was done."
He set to work and made a good job of it, with a pledget of lint andstrips of plaister, and meanwhile I speculated as to why, in all thesebottles and jars and gallipots, neither nature nor art could contrive tostore a drug magistral for the blow that had riven my heart asunder.
"That's better than two yards stripped off a wench's smock," he said atlast. "And a damnably fine smock too, you lucky rascal."
He twittered a snatch of ribaldry that made my foot twitch in my boot.Behind his back, I pocketed the priceless relic, dank and red with myunworthy blood, and followed him back to the company.
We made a longish stay, and fared well at his table. The doctor was agood enough fellow in himself, but his wife, a salt, domineering woman,lived in the light of the Parker Putwells, and he, poor devil, in theshadow they cast. He was playing a double game too, for whenever thered-elbowed serving-wench came into the room, he roared his dissent fromour lawlessness, and drank to the King with his glass over thewater-bottle as soon as she went out. Once when she brought us a rare dishof calvered roach and, with wenchlike curiosity, lingered to pick up acrumb or two of gossip, we had a snap of comedy, for, in his play-acting,he would take none till Maclachlan, to keep up the farce, thrust a pistolat his head and forced him. Whereupon the maid, in plucky fashion, threw acottage loaf at Maclachlan and took him fairly in the chest. The doctor, tohis credit, rose to protect her, but she braved it out. She would, sheaverred, lend the thingamyjig a better petticoat than the one he'd got on."If he mun wear 'em," she added, "he mought wear 'em long enough to bedacent." The doctor bustled her out at last, palpitating but triumphant.
Maclachlan had sprung up like a wild cat when the missile hit him.Luckily he was flustered by the bouncing of the loaf on the table and offagain clean into Margaret's lap, or the ready trigger would surely havebeen drawn in earnest. Then Margaret promptly took the edge off his angerby saying with menacing sweetness, "I'm sorry the fun has gone furtherthan was desirable, but I will not have the girl blamed for what was inher a brave deed, nor suffer any unpleasantness here on account of it.Pray be seated."
This ended the matter, and Maclachlan, with a wry smile, settled downagain to his fish.
"It was a verra guid thing after a' said," he explained, "that it wasnamy mouth, for it was an unco' ding. I'm half hungry yet, and, to be sure,breakfast and broillerie gang ill together."
It was well said, and Margaret rewarded him with a smile and engaged himin merry conversation. The Colonel, who had kept silent during thetrouble, now plied the doctor with questions about the surrounding country.
"It's a poor biding-place for a Parker Putwell," he replied. "If there'sa drearier or lonelier stretch in England than the moorlands of Leek, Iwould not care to see it. I go miles on end about it to visit my sickfolk, and mostly in a day's riding I see nobody but a stray shepherd, aflash pedlar twanning his way across country with his gewgaws, and now andthen a weaver scouring the outlying cottages for yarn."
When the meal was over Maclachlan insisted on paying for it, and bestoweda shilling on the loaf-thrower. In theory, I found, the clansmen paid forwhat they had, and Donald, being quartermaster to the party, was very busydischarging his obligations up and down
the village. The only cause ofdissatisfaction, but that not a slight one, was his Scots mode ofreckoning, in which a pint was near on half a gallon, while his shillingwas a beggarly penny. It always took a whirl of his dirk and a storm ofGaelic to convince a cottager of his accuracy, but he got through at last,and we reformed our order of march and started for Leek.
This time I took the sorrel and Maclachlan marched beside Margaret on hermare, for the Colonel wanted to give me an account, derived from the youngChief, of the Prince's marchings and victories. The Highlanders beingastonishing foot-folk, and the Colonel being full of analogies anddigressions, the tower of Leek church came in sight before we had got thePrince out of Edinburgh.
A halt was called to discuss what was to be done. The Colonel dismounted,and we followed his example. Margaret, I noticed, coloured slightly asMaclachlan lifted her down. She had been as cool and unfluttered as amarble image when she lay in my arms. Maclachlan was for marching on intothe town, and the doubt on the Colonel's face rather nettled him.
"The considerable town of Manchester," he said, "was entered, and in partseized, by one Scots sergeant and his drummer. Of a certainty near a scoreof Maclachlans can intake yon little clachan."
"Of a certainty," retorted the Colonel, "Margaret and one of your piperswould be enough if we only had the townspeople to consider. There's nogame much easier than walking into a lion's den when the lion isn't there,but it's pure foolishness to play the game till you're sure he's not athome."
"Lion! What's to do here wi' lions?" asked Maclachlan.
"As I'm only a volunteer," answered the Colonel, "and not yet a man ofauthority under the Prince's commission, which you are, I must ask yourleave to explain that our getting into Leek is a military problem. I grantye it's a little problem, since it wouldn't matter a pinch of snuff if wemarched in and every one of us was promptly hanged in the market-place.But I undertook to make Oliver here a soldier, and, damme, what you wantto do isn't soldiership, and he'll only learn soldiership by mastering thelittle problems first."
"Like sums at school," said I, whereat Margaret laughed aloud.
"Damme, you young rascal," stormed the Colonel, "if I'd got my commissionin my pocket, I'd put you under arrest for impertinence."
"With great respect, sir," I answered, "I beg to say that I understandthat, at a council of war, the youngest officer gives his opinion first."
"That's bowled you over, dad," said Margaret cheerfully.
"Damme, I'll bowl you off to Chester to-night," he retorted. "As sure asa gun's a gun, you'll ruin Oliver. Stop grinning like an ape, sir, at thatjade's tricks, and listen to me."
"I'm thinking, sir," said Maclachlan, "that in my present responsibleposition I would greatly value your observations on the matter in hand."
This was a clever remark so far as the Colonel was concerned, for hewould have talked to a viper about soldiering, but Maclachlan did not see,and I did, the delicate little mouth that Margaret made.
"My observations are simply these," said the Colonel: "We do not knowwhere Murray is, we do not know where the Prince is, and we do not knowwhere the Duke of Devonshire is. Any one of them may be in Leek."
"And who may be the Duke of Devonshire?" asked the chief. "I've neverheard of him."
"One of Geordie's dandiprats, who has got together a big force of militiaat Derby, and who, if he's any pluck, may have forestalled us all bymarching to Leek."
"It's sair awkward," said Maclachlan, completely taken aback by the news.
"It is so," said the Colonel, "and seeing that Oliver knows the rules andprocedures of courts martial, he shall deliver his judgment first."
"Sir," said I, bowing low, "I would, with respect, suggest...."
I got no further, for Donald, who was within a yard of my elbow, suddenlybounded into the air and let off a most astonishing yell. Then he ran upand down, like a foxhound after a lost scent, gabbling away in Gaelic. Theclansmen put their hands to their ears, and their ears to the wind,listening intently, whereon Donald ceased his capering and chattering, andcalled out to us, "Ta pipes! Ta Prunce! Ta pipes! Ta Prunce!"
"Whist, ye auld fule," said the chief. "Ye're enough to deafen a clap ofthunder."
"I'm telling it ye, ta pipes! ta Prunce!" he babbled, and then fellstill, and we all listened.
The clansmen must have had ears like the bucks of their own mountains. Icould hear nothing but the soft sough of the breeze as it swept o'er therank grass of the moorlands, but they, Maclachlan as madly as any of them,yelled their slogan, and the pipers filled their bags and blew fit toburst. Like was calling to like across the wilds.
Margaret glowed with enthusiasm, and the Colonel's eyes sparkled as hehanded me the box for the customary pinch--a courtesy, I found by laterexperience, he conferred on very few. Indeed, in my new trouble, thekindness and affection of the Colonel were becoming my best stand-by.
"The great game's afoot, Oliver," he said.
"And we'll play it to the end, sir."
"Good lad," said he.
"Donald, ye auld skaicher," said Maclachlan, "get your bairns agait. TheMaclachlans are going to be last, where they should be first, at theintaking of a town, but the Prince, God bless him, will think me balm inGilead when he sees the reinforcements I bring."
He was in high feather, and it interested me to watch in another thetonic effect of Margaret's presence. I took no advantage of my capacity asher body-servant, but leaped into my saddle and sat the sorrel like awooden image as he dodged about to get her horsed again and ready for theroad. He was, indeed, fit to serve a queen; the Highland fashionmarvellously well set off the clean, strong lines of his body, and thesingle eagle's feather in his bonnet was the right sign to be waving overhim. The top-dog spirit was fast oozing out of me, and I sat there sourlydusting the skirts of my poor country-tailor-made coat.
The men were lined up on the rough moorland track, Donald at their head,and the two pipers filling their bags and fingering their chanters behindhim. Maclachlan took Margaret's rein and began to lead her mare up theslope of the path, but the Colonel called to him and diverted hisattention, and she stopped beside me.
"Oliver," she said, "you must let me have your coat for half an hour whenwe are settled in the town, so that I can mend it. The holes in it make meshiver every time I see them."
"You are very kind, madam," said I, still dusting away, lest she shouldsee how my hand trembled.
"Oliver!"
She forced me to look at her now, she spoke so peremptorily, and when theblue eyes met mine they were so clear and intent that I feared she mightread my secret.
"Smile!"
Smile! I was to smile, was I? And when our Kate got the news at theHanyards, the smile would die out of her eyes for ever, for Jack, dear,splendid Jack, was the weft that had been woven into the warp of her being.
"I do not smile to order, madam," said I.
She flicked the mare sharply and cantered up to the level, whitherMaclachlan raced after her with the speed of a hound.