“I thought that b-by this time you would be in L-Lancashire, Captain Maclean.”
“So also did I,” and he told her the story of Gypsy Ben and his morning’s hunt. “There is business I have had news of in these parts, a riddle I must unravel before I can ride north with a quiet mind. The enemy musters in Nottinghamshire, and I must carry word of his dispositions.”
Her brown eyes had kindled. “Ben is a rogue then! By Heaven, sir, I will have him stript and whipt from Thames to Severn. Never fear but my vengeance shall reach him. Oh, I am heartily glad to know the truth, for though I have used him much I have had my misgivings. He carried letters for me to my dear Sir John.” She stopped suddenly. “That is why the replies are delayed. Oh, the faithless scoundrel! I can love a foe but I do abhor all traitors. … Do you say the enemy musters in Nottingham?” The anger in her voice had been replaced by eagerness at this new thought.
“So it is reported, and, as I read it, he may march by this very road if he hopes to take the Prince’s flank. You at Brightwell may have the war in your garden.”
Her eyes glistened. “If only Sir John were here! There is the chance of a famous exploit. You are a soldier, sir. Show me, for I love the gossip of war.”
On the hearthstone with a charred stick he drew roughly the two roads from the north. “Here or hereabouts will lie the decision,” he said. “Cumberland cannot suffer the Prince to approach nearer London without a battle. If you hear of us south of Derby undefeated, then you may know, my lady, that honesty has won.”
She cried out, twining her hands.
“Tell me more, sir. I had thought to pass the evening playing Pope Joan with my Puffin, but you are here to teach me a better pastime. Instruct me, for I am desperate ignorant.”
Alastair repeated once again his creed in which during the past days he had come the more firmly to believe. There must be a victory in England, but in the then condition of Wales and the West a very little victory would suffice to turn the scale. The danger lay in doubting counsels in the Prince’s own circle. Boldness, and still boldness, was the only wisdom. To be cautious was to be rash; to creep soberly south with a careful eye to communications was to run a deadly peril; to cut loose and march incontinent for London was safe and prudent. “Therefore I must get quickly to the Prince’s side,” he said, “for he has many doubting Thomases around him, and few with experience of war.”
“He has my Sir John,” she said proudly. “Sir John is young, and has not seen such service as you, but he is of the same bold spirit. I know his views, for he has told them me, and they are yours.”
“There are too many halfhearted, and there is also rank treason about. Your Gypsy Ben is the type of thousands.”
She clenched her hands and held them high. “How I l-loathe it! Oh, if I thought I could betray the Cause I should hang myself. If I thought that one I loved could be a traitor I should d-die.” There was such emotion in her voice that the echo of it alarmed her and she changed her tone.
“Puffin,” she cried, “are you honest on our side? I have sometimes doubted you.”
“Madam,” Mr. Johnson replied in the same bantering voice, “I can promise that at any rate I will not betray you. Being neither soldier nor statesman, I am not yet called to play an overt part in the quarrel, but I am a Prince’s man inasmuch as I believe in the divine origin of the Christian state and therefore in the divine right of monarchs to govern. I am no grey rat from Hanover.”
“Yet,” she said, with a chiding finger, “I have heard you say that a Tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one’s grandmother.”
“Nay, my dear lady,” he cried, “such heresy was never mine. I only quoted it as a pernicious opinion of another, and I quoted too my answer that ‘the Devil, as the first foe to constituted authority, was the first Whig.’ ”
At this juncture Mrs. Peckover appeared with a kettle of boiling water and the rest of the equipment of tea, which the girl dispensed out of the coarse inn earthenware and sweetened with the coarse sugar which Mr. Johnson had used for his port. While the latter drank his dish noisily, she looked curiously at Alastair.
“You are no politician, Captain Maclean, and doubtless have no concern with the arguments with which our gentlemen soothe their consciences. You do not seek wealth or power—of that I am certain. What are the bonds that join you to the Prince?”
“I am a plain soldier,” he said, “and but fulfil my orders.”
“Nay, but you do not answer me. You do more than obey your orders; you are an enthusiast, as Sir John is—as I am—as that dull Puffin is not. I am curious to know the reason of your faith.”
Alastair, looking into the fire, found himself constrained to reply.
“I am of the old religion,” he said, “and loyalty to my king is one of its articles.”
She nodded. “I am a daughter of another church, which has also that teaching.”
“Also I am of the Highlands, and I love the ancient ways. My clan has fought for them and lost, and it is in my blood to fight still and risk the losing.”
Her eyes encouraged him, and he found himself telling the tale of Clan Gillian—the centuries-long feud with Clan Diarmaid, the shrinking of its lands in Mull and Morvern, the forays with Montrose and Dundee, the sounding record of its sons in the wars of Europe. He told of the old tower of Glentarnit, with the loch
