by John Buchan
He lay for a little choking with the new excitement, listening to the thunderous trampling of hooves which seemed to assault the heavens. These moments were his salvation, for the van of cavalry passed by after the others and left the moor open to the right for escape. In a little he got to his feet and looked out. The air was still dim with snow and powder, but he saw scattered troops riding up and down, and the dull red blotch on the heath where the fight had been hottest. He had no plan of flight save to regain the hills he had left, haply to find Lord Lovat and share his fortunes. But when he tried to walk he found his legs bending under him, and he was dismally conscious that at this pace he would fall an easy victim to any wandering trooper.
At that moment a horseman appeared on the right, galloping hard toward him, an English orderly on a good mount, looking spick and clean even from the dust of battle. Francis, haggard and silent, crouched in the heather; it was his one chance for life, and he was desperate. The man came nearer, riding easily, with a pleased smile on his face as of a bloodless conqueror. Suddenly a wild man rose from the earth and gripped him by the leg. A pistol cracked into the air, and a bullet splashed in a bog-pool; the next instant the elegant young gentleman was rolling in mud, and Francis was trying wearily to mount the frightened beast. Lying like a sack on its back, he suffered it to bear him whither it pleased; then slowly and painfully he clambered upright in the saddle and found rein and stirrup. The horse went back on its haunches, and Francis stared round the blurred landscape, seeking direction. He found it in the sight of old Culloden house rising bare on the right, and thither he turned. At the wall of the courtyard he found a party of dragoons set round a huge man who alone and wounded to the death still kept a fierce front to his assailants. A dozen lay dead around him; his head was gashed on either side, his breast bled freely from bayonet stabs, and he could scarcely stand with a broken thigh-bone. Francis recognised Golis, his friend of the morning, and with a cry to him to bear up, he urged his horse towards him. After all, death must come, thought he, and this seemed a fitting place and time. But Fortune would have none of such aimless heroism. A stray bullet grazed his horse’s flank and set that already maddened beast off in a wild fury to the South. Francis could only cling feebly, careless whither he went and praying vainly for some rest from this awful toil.
Of a sudden he found himself in the thick of a party riding pell-mell from the moor to the hills. A man looked up and recognised him.
“Who are ye for?” said Francis, dismally.
“For the Prince,” said the man.
“And where is he?” asked Francis.
The man pointed to a little body somewhat in front, with a man in soiled fine clothes in the middle, hurried along on a weary horse led by a barefoot Highlander.
“There goes your master,” said the man, “and this is the end of an auld sang.”
CHAPTER XII. After Culloden.
By midday the line of fugitives was in the thick of the dark hills, with Francis sitting dumb on his horse and puzzling his poor wits with vain projects. A council had been held at the Nairnside when they crossed the Ford of Falie. Thence the remains of the troops were sent to Ruthven in Badenoch, while the Prince with some dozen of a suite set out for the West. Francis went with him, caring little where he went so long as the way took him far from the accursed field. By chance he had heard the name of Fraser and Lovat linked with their destination. The words were centres round which to gather his wandering wits. Drearily he felt that as his mission had been to Lovat, so he must see it through to the end. The Cause was lost; why, then, he must perish with the Cause, and as he had drawn the old lord into the affair, he must get to his side in the disastrous climax.
But his horse was wearied and wounded, and its rider was foolish with sickness. So at the house of Faroline he began to lag behind the party, and two miles further had given up the vain effort. In the sleet of midday he managed still to follow their tracks, but when the weather cleared in the early afternoon he saw them many miles ahead in the extremity of the glen. The sky changed to an April blue, and with the warmth and freshness his exhaustion grew less burdensome. He stopped and bathed in a roadside tarn till the mire of battle was washed off, and then with more spirit he crossed the nick of the pass and came out on a wide, boggy moor with the great square house of Gortuleg set in the middle, and a few wretched sheilings jumbled into a clachan by the highway. There was no man in sight; clearly the Prince’s party had but halted for a moment and gone on. The moss-pools were shining blue, and a great crying of birds enlivened the stillness, while through the midst gleamed the links of a slow stream.
The great house was in disorder, for the door stood wide to the wall and from within came the shrill cry of women. The news had already reached them, and there was mourning for a lost cause and ruined fortunes. The hall was empty and littered with a confusion of cloaks and riding-gear, with half-cooked food placed at random. A little girl stood weeping by the stair-foot, and at the sight of Francis ran screaming down a passage. The place was like a house seen in a bad dream, where all things are upside down and no human being appears. But Francis was beyond ceremony. He knew the place for a dwelling of the Frasers, and here he could not fail to have news of the chief. So he climbed the stairs heavily, only to find a worse confusion above, and some dozen ragged serving-girls who fled like rats at his approach. He opened the door of a room which was empty and stripped of all furniture. Again and again he tried, but all alike were tenantless. Then at a little room in the far corridor he found the door locked and heard the sound as of some one moving within. Angry with his aimless search, he put his shoulder to the wood and drove the hasp back. As the door flew open a little chamber was revealed with a dying fire on the hearth and an old man sitting hunched up in a chair. The figure turned a quick eye to the intruder, and Francis saw with joy that it was Lovat himself.
“Come in, sir,” said the old man. “Come in, and God speed ye if your errand be fair.” And he turned a face of such dumb misery, such baffled wrath at war with the feebleness of age, that Francis took two steps forward and then came to a standstill. He knew that he was not recognised, and, all unknown, was the spectator of the tragedy of a career.
“Come in, man, I say,” piped the old voice. “If ye are a freend, what news bring ye o’ the last dispensation?” And he turned his ambiguous eyes upon the newcomer to give a further shade of doubt to his ambiguous words.
But something caught his notice in Francis’ face and awakened recollection. He pulled himself up in his chair and glared at the other. “Is’t you?” he cried, “you, the man that played the hell wi’ my fortunes and set me out on a daft venture! Come awa in, Mr. Birkenshaw, for ‘faith ye’re a welcome guest. Ye’re the man of honour to be sure, and ye’ve come to gloat ower the issue of your wark. Ay,” he cried shrilly, “it was your accursed tongue and your damnable clash that has been the ruin o’ an auld man and a loyal people. Ye’d best see your job to the end. There’s no a man in this house, nothing but greetin’ women. If ye have sic an animosity to the name o’ Lovat, here’s an auld life wad thank ye for a speedy quittance. I kenna if ye’re still for the Prince, since you gentry have a trick of keeping your honour and your pouches on the bieldy side o’ the wall; but if so be ye are, here’s auld Simon Fraser who wad drink damnation to the Prince for leading him sic a road. Simon’s a renegade, do ye hear? He renounces the Stuarts and a’ their warks. So do to him as ye think fit. Or if ye are for King George, ye see before ye a man who sent his folk to the forefront o’ the battle, one who canna look for mercy and doesna seek it.” And he held out his great hands and craned his neck as if for a blow.
The sight and the words sickened Francis. The trivial inflation of the talk, the luring cajolery of the eyes, were hateful to one who had just ridden from the naked terrors of war. Remorse for his share in this man’s fate slipped from him like a garment; he felt relieved, but he had also the bitterness that here had gone his last friend in the North. Had he found the
Lovat of his former interview he had been ready to follow him to the death; now the last mooring had been cast from the bark of his unsteady fortunes.
He turned to go, wearily, dismally, while the old lord yelled obscene reproaches through the open door. “Gang back to the jade that sent ye,” he cried; “gang back to the weemen, man. Ye’re ower empty and nice for the warld o’ men.” Then he did a queer thing, for with infinite difficulty he struggled to the window, and there watched Francis pick his way through the moss, till he was swallowed up in the smoky clachan.
Meantime that unfortunate gentleman was in a sad temper. He had seen the degeneration of enthusiasm; he had been a witness to the palpable decay of a man’s spirit. The sight of the great cumbrous body, leering, twisting in an agony of fear, made him despair of life. When he came to the village he found some makeshift for an inn in a two-roomed thatched cot, where a dirty red-haired man sold raw whisky and pointed out straw-beds to forlorn travellers. Francis had great arrears of sleep to overtake, his head rang, and his limbs ached from weakness. He ate what meal they could give him, and then asked for a place to sleep undisturbed. The landlord nodded, and led him to a garret between the ceiling and the thatch, where on a bed of bracken and heather those might sleep who desired rest and a hiding-place. The temper of the man was fast sinking to a dogged carelessness. In a few hours these hills would be scoured, and King George’s men would be knocking at this very door. Let them come, let them take him; after all, a tow on the Carlisle walls would be a brave ending to an inglorious and hopeless life.
The afternoon was hot after the storm and drew to a quiet evening. Without on the moor broken men passed at odd times, now sitting on a worn horse, now leading their mount, or haply merely stumbling on foot. They were the rearguard of the fugitive, for in an hour after there came a lonely party of horse, picking their way with many complaints. This in turn was the van of the pursuit, and from Culloden field to the West there would soon stretch a line of redcoats, and there would be no passage beyond the Stratherick hills.
Francis slept on till the garret-loft was dark and stars twinkled through the thatch. Then there came a rattling of the ladder which disturbed his dreams. Half-dazed, he saw the landlord’s red head thrust up, and the landlord’s dirty fingers beckoning him down. From his wanderings he had learned the need of quick action, so he scrambled to his feet and followed, rubbing sleep from his eyes with weary knuckles. The red-haired man wore an air of secrecy, and he noted that the one door was closely bolted. Had the man not been clearly of the honest party, it would have savoured of betrayal. But when he entered the room he saw the reason of the thing. An old fleshy man lay groaning on a sedan-chair which had been set near the fire. “It’s the chief himsel’,” said the innkeeper, urging Francis forward and retreating nervously to the back. “It’s the great Lord Lovat.”
The door closed with a clang, and the pair were left together. Francis with drowsy brain looked hard at the unwieldly presence before him. Then Lovat checked his groanings, recognised him, and cried out in the kindliest tones.
“Ye’ll excuse my ill-tongue in the morning, Mr. Francis. I was the deil’s ain plaything wi’ the gout. Ach, the unholy gripes, they play hell-fire wi’ a man’s speerit and mainners. Forget an auld man’s clavers. I have come the night at sair bodily discomfort to make it up wi’ ye. And oh, sir, is this not an awful thing that has happened?”
Francis drew his breath short and sat down. Culloden was still too raw in his memory to speak of it lightly. “I have an explanation to make to you, my lord. I was a poor carrier of your letter. I had not gone twenty miles in this vile country when I met with an accident which laid me on my back for months in a hillside cottage among your own clansmen. I have to thank your ring for the hospitality. It’s not a week since I recovered, and it was only yesterday that I gave the Prince your letter. The clan had been long out, the thing was so much waste paper, the Secretary said; but though the time was bye I had to complete my errand.”
He stopped, appalled by the change on the old man’s face. He scrambled from his chair, seized Francis’ hand, and mumbled it like a child. “Ye havena given the letter, my dear laddie! Blithe news, bonny news. There’s life in the auld dowg yet, gentlemen.” And then, as he dimly heard the last words, his mirth ceased. He flung the hand from him, lay back like a snarling dog, and gloomed from beneath shaggy brows. “Just yestreen, nae further back than yestreen,” he moaned, “and I was a safe man. A merciful God stretches the doited creature on a sick bed, and the thing defeats the purposes of the Almighty by rinnin’ to the Prince, like a leevin’ corp, and giein’ him my bit letter. And now there’s a rope round Simon’s craig as sure as if King Geordie’s self had tied it. Oh that a Fraser had stuck a dirk intil ye afore ye did the evil! What for in God’s name was I sae daft as to gie ye the ring? Ye micht have fund fine clean caller burial in the Stratherick heather, and nae man been the wiser or the waur. Eh, hech, the auld man and the puir people!” and he sighed with maudlin pity.
Francis saw the position at a glance. The clan had been sent out while the chief thought that the Prince already had his letter. As the unhappy cause grew hopeless they had not been recalled, doubtless because Lovat saw himself already involved beyond escape. Now, in the final desolation, on him as one of the greatest rebel lords the punishment must fall heavy. And the bitterness of it all was that but for this scrawl of a letter he might yet be safe. He himself had not taken the field; he might represent his clan’s action as flat rebellion, the disobedience of a son.
“The letter seems to stick in your throat,” said Francis. “I had mind of your desire and asked the Secretary Murray to destroy it before me.”
“And you saw it done?” cried Lovat. “Say ye saw the damned thing in twenty pieces and I’ll gie ye a’ I hae in the warld.”
“The Secretary was ill and on the road for Inverness, so I dared not press him. He swore he would destroy it with his own hands, for it was not the custom of the honest party to do otherwise.”
“But did ye no see him dae it?” screamed the old man.
“I confess I did not,” said the other.
“Then it’s a’ up. Murray o’ Brochtoun has the letter. Had it been any ither man it would have mattered little. The Prince, Lord George, Lochiel, Keppoch, they’re a’ men o’ honour, but the Murray — my God, the thing has faun intil the richt hands. Murray! His heart is as black as bog-water; he’s an easy, canty man, what ye ca’ a pleasant fellow, but I would sooner lippen to the traitor Judas than just this canny Murray.”
The man buried his face in his hands and rocked himself in his chair.
Francis was in lamentable despair. In his heart he could not contradict Lovat’s words, for he still had mind of the Secretary’s eye, and he cursed his own inertness at the moment of parting. He had been culpably remiss, for he had played into a traitor’s hands; and though the victim was no stranger to treachery, it was treachery of the open, braggadocio kind, and no cowardly fear of his skin. But as he looked at the figure before him repulsion began to choke his remorse. This ungainly man with white hair all dishevelled and a mottled, rubicund face who alternated between the foulest abuse and a beggar’s flattery — it was hard to rise into heroics in such a cause. For a moment Francis clapped his hands to his head and looked into sheer vacancy. His wits wandered, he seemed to be leading a crazy, phantasmal life. Without was the black darkness of endless moors and hideous, ragged hills, men were seeking him as a fugitive, his whole course was that of a derelict without aim or hope; and within the sordid room was this phrasing chieftain, weeping senselessly or leering with the ugliness of age. He was astray on the very backbone of creation, tethered to a madman’s company. The thought roused a ghastly humour, and sitting on the table he laughed shrilly till even Lovat stopped his moaning — the laughter of wits half-unhinged and a fainting body.
“See here, my lord,” he cried, “we are two men in misfortune. I have done you an ill turn, though I never intended it. But
this is your own country. It cannot be hard to find faithful servants to carry you to the wilder hills, where you can bide till the blast blows by, and laugh at Murray and all his kind.”
“Dinna talk,” said Lovat, solemnly. “The finger of God is upon me. I was intemperate in my youth, I loved wine and women, and now in my declining years I am carried whither I will not. I canna put foot to the ground on a carriage-road, and is it like I could gang on the stanes o’ Corryarrick? Forbye I must traivel wi’ mony little elegancies and necessaries for the toilet and the stamach. I am no rude barbarian, sir, to be ready to flee at a moment’s notice. I am an auld man wi’ an uncommon experience o’ the warld and its ways, and some pretensions to fashion. Is it no a peetiful thing that I must tak to the muirs like a bog-blitter?”
He had raised his head and twisted his extraordinary face into an expression of grave sorrow.
“I do not presume to advise your course,” said Francis. “I only say that whatever you may choose I am willing to share its danger.”
Lovat looked him up and down gravely.
“There’s some sense in that thick heid o’ yours, Mr. Birkenshaw. But what will ye serve? Ye will be but another mouth to feed.”
“Also another sword in extremity,” said Francis, dryly. He felt himself bound to stand by this strange man, in whose ill-fortune he had had some hand. It was his one remaining duty, and irksome though it was he had braced his mind to it. But this reception of his generosity damped him sorely.
