“You have summoned me, Captain Maclean,” he said. “I am here to make good my promise. Show me how I can serve you.”
“We are constituted a court of honour,” said Alastair. “We seek your counsel.”
He turned to Norreys.
“You are not two months married, Sir John. How many years have you to your age?”
The man answered like an automaton. “I am in my twenty-third,” he said. He was looking alternately to his antagonist and to Midwinter, still with the bewilderment of a dull child.
“Since when have you meddled in politics?”
“Since scarce two years.”
“You were drawn to the Prince’s side—by what? Was it family tradition?”
“No, damme, my father was a Hanover man when he lived. I turned Jacobite to please Claudie. There was no welcome at Chastlecote unless a man wore the white rose.”
“And how came you into your recent business?”
“ ’Twas Kyd’s doing. … No, curse it, I won’t shelter behind another, for I did it of my own free will. But ’twas Kyd showed me a way of improving my fortunes, for he knew I cared not a straw who had the governing of the land.”
“And you were happy in the service?”
The baronet’s face had lost its childishness, and had grown sullen.
“I was content.” Then he broke out. “Rot him, I was not content—not of late. I thought the Prince and his adventure was but a Scotch craziness. But now, with him in the heart of England I have been devilish anxious.”
“For your own safety? Or was there perhaps another reason?”
Sir John’s pale face flushed. “Let that be. Put it that I feared for my neck and my estate.”
Alastair turned smiling to the others. “I begin to detect the rudiments of honesty … I am going to unriddle your thoughts, Sir John. You were beginning to wonder how your wife would regard your courses. Had the Prince shipwrecked beyond the Border, she would never have known of them, and the Rising would have been between you only a sad pleasing memory. But now she must learn the truth, and you are afraid. Why? She is a lady of fortune, but you did not marry her for her fortune.”
“My God, no,” he cried. “I loved her most damnably, and I ever shall.”
“And she loves you?”
The flush grew deeper. “She is but a child. She has scarcely seen another man. I think she loves me.”
“So you have betrayed the Prince’s cause, because it did not touch you deep and you favoured it only because of a lady’s eyes. But the Prince looks like succeeding, Sir John. He is now south of Derby on the road to London, and his enemies do not abide him. What do you purpose in that event? Have you the purchase at his Court to get your misdoings overlooked?”
“I trusted to Kyd.”
“Vain trust. Last night, after you left us so hastily, Kyd was stripped to the bare bone.”
“Was he sent to the Prince?” the man asked sharply.
“No. We preferred to administer our own justice, as we will do with you. But he is gone into a long exile.”
“Is he dead? … You promised me my life.”
“He lives, as you shall live. Sir John, I will be frank with you. You are a youth whom vanity and greed have brought deep into the mire. I would get you out of it—not for your own sake, but for that of a lady whom you love, I think, and who most assuredly loves you. Your besetting sin is avarice. Well, let it be exercised upon your estates and not upon the fortunes of better men. I have a notion that you may grow with good luck into a very decent sort of man—not much of a fellow at heart, perhaps, but reputable and reputed—at any rate enough to satisfy the love-blinded eyes of your lady. Do you assent?”
The baronet reddened again at the contemptuous kindliness of Alastair’s words.
“I have no choice,” he said gruffly.
“Then it is the sentence of this court that you retire to your estates and live there without moving outside your park pale.”
“Alone?”
“Alone. Your wife has gone into Wiltshire with her Grace of Queensberry. You will stay at Weston till she returns to you, and that date depends upon the posture of affairs in the country. You will give me your oath to meddle no more in politics. And for the safety of your person and the due observance of your promise you will be given an escort on your journey south.”
“Will you send Highlanders into Oxfordshire?” was the astonished question.
Midwinter answered. “Nay, young sir, you will have the bodyguard of Old England.”
Sir John stared at Midwinter and saw something in that face which made him avert his gaze. He suddenly shivered, and a different look came into his eyes. “You have been merciful to me, sirs,” he said, “merciful beyond my deserts. I owe you more than I can repay.”
“You owe it to your wife, sir,” Alastair broke in. “Cherish her dearly and let that be your atonement. … If you will take my advice, you will snatch a little sleep, for you have been moss-trooping for a round of the clock.”
As the baronet’s bare shanks disappeared up the stairway Alastair turned wearily to the others. A haze seemed to cloud his eyes, and the crackle of logs on the hearth sounded in his ears like the noise of the sea.
“You were right,” he told Johnson. “There’s the makings of a sober husband in that man. No hero, but she may be trusted to gild her idol. I think she will be happy.”
“You have behaved as a good Christian should.” Mr. Johnson was still shaking as if from the ague. “Had I been in your case, I do not think I would have shown so just a mind.”
“Call it philosophy, which makes a man know what it is not in his power to gain,” Alastair laughed. “I think I have
