“What says the prisoner?” the lady asked.
“Lies, madam, devilish lies—and these papers a common forgery. Some enemy—and God knows I have many—has put them in my baggage.”
“You are acquainted with the handwriting, madam?” Alastair asked.
She studied the papers again. “I have seen it a thousand times. It is a well-formed and capable style, clerkly and yet gentlemanlike. Nay, there can be no doubt. His hand wrote these lists and superscriptions.”
Kyd’s face from pallor flushed scarlet. “God’s curse, but am I to have my fame ruined by a playacting wench! What daftness is this? What knows this hussy of my hand of write?”
“Do you deny the authorship, sir?” Alastair asked.
The man had lost his temper. “I deny and affirm nothing before a court that has no sort of competence. I will answer to the Prince, when he calls for an answer, and I can promise a certain gentleman his kail through the reek on that day.”
“I should be happy to be proved in error. But if the papers should happen to be genuine you will admit, sir, that they bear an ugly complexion.”
“I’ll admit nothing except that you’re a bonny friend to lippen so readily to a clumsy fabrication. Ay, and you’ve the damned insolence to bring in a baggage from the roads to testify to my hand of write. You’ll have to answer to me for that, my man.”
There was a low laugh from the mask. He had not recognised her, partly because of his discomposure and fear and partly because he had never dreamed of her presence in that countryside. When, therefore, she plucked the silk from her face and looked sternly down on him, he seemed suddenly to collapse like a pricked bladder. His stiff jaw dropped, his eyes stared, he made as if to speak and only stammered.
“Your face condemns you, sir,” she said gravely. “I have seen your writing too often to mistake it, and I have lived long enough in the world to recognise the sudden confusion of crime in a man’s eyes. I condemn you, sir, as guilty on both charges, and fouler and shamefuller were never proven.”
Kyd’s defence was broken; but there was a resolute impudence in the man which made him still show fight. He looked obstinately at the others, and attempted a laugh; then at the Duchess, with an effrontery as of a fellow-conspirator.
“It seems we’re both in an ugly place,” he said. “You ken my secret, madam, which I had meant to impart to you when an occasion offered. Here’s the two of us honest folks at the mercy of the wild Jacobites and wishing sore that the Duke of Kingston would make better speed up the water.”
“That is not my wish,” she said, with stony eyes.
It was those eyes which finally unnerved him.
“But, madam,” he cried, “your Grace—you are of the Government party, the party I have served—I have letters from Mr. Pelham … you winna suffer the rebels to take vengeance on me for loyalty to King George.”
“I am a Whig,” said she, “and will not condemn you for political conduct, base though I must judge it. The Prince’s Attorney must hale you to another court. You will take him to your master—” this to Alastair—“and leave him to that tribunal.”
“With your assent, madam, I do not ask for judgment on the first charge, and I do not propose that he should go to the Prince. The penalty for his treason is death, and I am unwilling to saddle His Highness before he has won his throne with the duty of putting an end to a rascal.”
She nodded. “I think you are wise, sir. But the second charge is the more heinous, for it offends not against the law of men’s honour, but the law of human kindness and the law of God. There I find him the chief of sinners. What penalty do you ask for?”
“I ask that your Grace pronounce sentence of perpetual exile.”
“But where—and how?”
“It matters not, so long as it is forth of Britain.”
“But you cannot be eternally watching the ports.”
“Nay, but he will not come back. There is a brotherhood which has already aided me—your Grace knows nothing of them, but they know everything of your Grace. It is the brotherhood of Old England, and is sure as the judgment of God. To that charge we will commit him. They will see him forth of England, and they will make certain that he does not return.”
Kyd’s face had lightened, as if he saw a prospect of avoiding the full rigours of the sentence. The Duchess marked it and frowned, but he misread her mood, which he thought one of displeasure at Alastair’s plan. He adopted an air of humble candour.
“Hear me, your Grace,” he implored. “It’s a queer story mine, but a juster than you think. I’m not claiming to be a perfect character, and I’m not denying that I take a canny bit profit when I find it, like an eident body. The honest truth is that I don’t care a plack for politics one side or the other, and it’s nothing to me which king sits on the throne. My job’s to be a trusty servant of His Grace, and no man can say that I’m not zealous in that cause. Ay, and there’s another cause I’m sworn to, and that’s Scotland. I’m like auld Lockhart o’ Carnwath—my heart can hold just the one land at a time. I call God Almighty to witness that I never did ill to a kindly Scot, and if I’ve laboured to put a spoke in the Chevalier’s coach-wheels, it’s because him and his wild caterans are like to play hell with my puir auld country. Show me what is best for Scotland, and Nicholas Kyd will spend his last bodle and shed his last drop of blood to compass it.”
There was an odd earnestness, even a note of honesty, in the man’s appeal, but it found no acceptance. The lady
