Book 1 — Chapter III

How I ate, drank, and gamed with Sir Hugh Richmond, under whom I would fain see Service

For all my cogitations, I had settled upon nothing, and I was not only surprised but confused when there stepped out on the porch and made toward me—the clatter of his boots upon the pavement caused me to turn my head—a cavalier, whom I instantly divined to be the bearer of our evil tidings. Abstractly, I had a welcome in my heart for him such as Pharaoh of old entertained for similar messengers, and I purposed to meet him in much the same way, too; concretely, my first thought was one of pleased surprise at his appearance.

He was tall, well-knit, well-bronzed, of darker skin and eyes than mine. His face was handsome in a stern and somewhat martial way. His bearing was that of a soldier and accorded well with the rich uniform he wore. I observed that he made directly to me, and, therefore, I inferred that he had come to seek me. I was annoyed at myself that I had enjoyed no more time for preparation for the meeting. I must have been deeply absorbed in my thoughts, I decided, not to have heard the clatter he made riding up to the door of the inn on the other side.

I had taken off my hat—heavy, clumsy felt thing that it was!—but, as the new-comer approached, I clapped it firmly on my head and rose, resisting with difficulty a wild inclination to wrap my riding-coat about my legs like the skirt of a dress.

My officer stopped a few paces from me, clapped his heels together, removed his hat with a sharp military gesture, and bowed quite gracefully before me.

"Sir," said he in a firm, authoritative voice, due perhaps to his habit of command, "may I introduce myself? I am Sir Hugh Richmond, captain in the King's Guards."

"My name is..." replied I, bowing in my turn, "is..."

What was my name? In my hurry it had not occurred to me to fix upon any. I paused stupidly enough while the gallant captain fixed his dark eyes upon me in surprised inquiry. I blurted out the first that came into my mind.

"Henry Carthew," I said.

"I am glad to have the honour of your acquaintance, Mr. Carthew," continued the soldier agreeably.

As he spoke, he smiled slightly. His face changed at once, and I thought, when he smiled, I had never seen a pleasanter-looking man. It was as if the real man had given a glimpse of himself behind the cloud with which habit and military discipline had shrouded him. Oh, but he was good to look on then!

"The pleasure, sir, is mine. I am honoured in the acquaintance of so distinguished a soldier as Sir Hugh Richmond."

Another look of surprise came to the face of the officer.

"You have heard of me, sir?" he asked, not without a certain pride.

"Your charge at Sedgemoor hath been told of even in Scotland."

"'Twas naught," he said carelessly. "I take it, sir, that you are not a soldier?"

"Only by inclination," replied I bravely. "I am contemplating service, however, and indeed, sir, 'twas for that I came hither in the hope of meeting you."

"Of meeting me?"

"Even so," I answered boldly, feeling that by happy chance I had stumbled upon an excellent excuse for my presence and interest. "We have heard in Edinburgh that you were on your way hither with warrants for the execution of the Earl of Clanranald and other rebels against His Majesty."

"Faith, sir," was the reply, "my name, my history, and business seem well enough known in these parts. And how, may I ask, was this news bruited abroad?"

"Express riders from the south have stated that you were charged with the delivery of the King's warrants for those high enough for His Majesty to take personal interest in," I answered promptly.

"'Fore God, sir," exclaimed Sir Hugh, laughing lightly, "with that rumour running ahead of me, I wonder some one did not endeavour to despoil me of my warrants in the interest of the condemned!"

"Sir," said I, "we are all loyal men in these parts."

I smiled as I spoke.

"Since Sedgemoor," returned the captain, sharing in my amusement.

"Ay, since Sedgemoor, and I believe there is no man in Scotland would molest you."

"But the adherents of Clanranald? I mention him since he is of the greater rank," he asked curiously.

I shrugged my shoulders. 'Twas excellent well done i' faith. I doubt if Mistress Nell Gwynn herself could have acted better. Although my heart was beating like to choke me, I gave no outward sign.

"He hath made his bed," I said, with what affectation of indifference I could muster, "let him lie upon it."

"'Tis like to be a long sleep then," returned my captain grimly, "for the warrant spells his death."

"So we have heard," said I.

I had to bite my lip and turn away for the moment, but I put such iron constraint upon myself as enabled me to awaken no suspicion in the captain's mind.

"Poor gentleman!" he said, after a little pause. "I never had errand that I liked less to discharge. But this work does not interest you, young sir."

Oh, did it not? I never was so interested in all my life.

"Nor did I break upon your solitude to discuss the King's business or my own. I learned from the landlord that a guest had preceded me, and that a gentleman had ordered supper who sat in loneliness out here, whence I made bold to interrupt your reverie and propose that we should share the table. I have had so little society since entering Scotland that I pine for a little free intercourse with my equals. Most gentlemen have avoided me, due perhaps to the rumour of which you speak."

"You are very welcome to such poor companionship as I can give you," said I. "And indeed, as I told you, I had come here to seek you with view to entering the King's service. I'm a gentleman of some small fortune. They call me the Laird of Lochnaven."

"Your age, young sir?" said the captain, surveying me thoughtfully.

"My age!" I exclaimed, with a woman's natural reluctance to declare it. "Is it necessary that I...?"

The captain threw back his head and laughed boisterously.

"You are as timorous about giving it as if you were a girl."

"Twenty!" exclaimed I in my deepest voice and most imperious manner. "And, sir, I would thank you to modify your allusion to any timidity you may falsely suspect me of."

I laid my hand on my sword and was glad to feel the touch of the hilt. It gave me something to still my agitation.

"Thou art a good lad," said the captain genially, clapping me heavily upon the shoulder, "if but a slight one. I like your pluck, Master Carthew, and I have no doubt we will turn you into a brave soldier yet."

"I have, I trust, interest enough to procure me a cornetcy."

"Interest is well enough, but, hark ye, a word in your ear. What you Scots call siller is about the most interesting appeal any one can make to King James."

"I will e'en have a supply of that."

"Well, then," returned the captain, "the matter can be easily arranged, I make no doubt. We shall take further counsel on 't to-morrow. If agreeable to you, I should like to have you in my own company of guards. There's a vacancy or two since Sedgemoor, and I'll own my heart warms to you, lad."

"Nothing would please me better," said I, delighted at the success of my ruse, "than the prospect of service under so distinguished a master of the art as yourself."

"You talk like a book, boy," said the captain, not ill-pleased, however, at the compliment. "I foresee we shall get along vastly well. I had been pining for the sight of a woman in all these lonely rides, but you will take the place of one as well as any man on earth could."

Could he suspect me?

"Sir, sir!" I cried, "do I infer that you think me womanish?"

"What a tinder-box it is!" laughed the captain. "I only meant your wit and your spirit would go far to render other company unnecessary. Come," he resumed, "loose your hold upon your sword. I am too old to fight with you, and in too peaceful a mood for quarrel to-night, especially about nothing."

"Gentlemen," said the landlord, coming out of the door and approaching us, "your supper is served. Not hearing to the contrary and seeing you together, sirs, I have ventured to set it at one table."

"You have done well," I replied.

"Excellent i' faith," commented my companion genially.

And together we turned toward the house. It was, indeed, a noble supper that was set before us. My fellow-traveller insisted that, as I was the first-comer and had done the ordering, to me appertained the head of the table. He proved a good trencherman likewise, and made much mock of my small appetite, alleging that all good soldiers were of necessity good feeders. I did my best to follow his generous example, but I am afraid I minced more as a woman than ate vigorously as a man.

It had been dusk outside when Sir Hugh had approached me. The dim light of the candles in the big parlour in which we supped was not more favourable to a disclosure of my secret than the twilight outside. I felt confident that no suspicions had been awakened in the soldier's mind, although how I could have borne his keen scrutiny in the full blaze of day was a doubtful question. I did not mean to bear it, so far as I was concerned, under those conditions if it could in any wise be helped.

"If I be not indiscreet, Sir Hugh," said I, during a pause in the meal, "I take it that you are an unmarried man?"

"You take it right, Master Carthew. A soldier loves all ladies; he marries none."

"A poor lookout for womankind if the best men are in the army," said I, bridling.

"'Tis the stern necessity of the trade," he returned coolly. "Wedlock and the sword go not well together. Have you a sweetheart, young sir?" he asked in his turn.

"I?" I exclaimed indignantly. "Certainly not. No. Yes.... That is..."

"Keep thy secret, lad. Do you come soldiering with me, you will have one in every town where you are stationed longer than a fortnight."

"Are soldiers, then, so fickle?"

"They are truth itself," he paused, "to the nearest fair," he added.

He lifted his glass and surveyed it a moment with half-shut eyes.

"I give you a toast. To the nearest fair!"

He drank his. I sipped mine. He noticed my abstemiousness.

"When you love harder, you drink deeper and fight better," he said sagely.

"Doubtless," said I. "And yet," I ran on, "the romances tell us of the constant devotion of the knight to his lady. Of how the soldier adventures far and wide and yet remains true to his one ideal at home."

"Such hath not been my experience. War and soldiering you will find are not as they are writ of in books."

"You have questioned me; I have no doubt that you will permit me to question you," I said in my turn.

"You are not under my command yet," said the captain, smiling at my presumption. "Ask what you will."

"Then there is no especial lady to whom your thoughts revert?"

"None, or rather there are a dozen," was the prompt reply.

I do not know why I should have felt glad at this, or what particular interest I had in Sir Hugh Richmond's love affairs, but he had rather flouted the idea of my sex, and, although I wore the trews for the time being, I could not forget that I was yet a woman. I should have liked to teach this red-coated Sassenach a thing or two, and I really longed for an opportunity to show him that we girls of Scotland were not to be so lightly dismissed as all that.

"You see, lad, I have campaigned in many countries, and have seen many women. God bless them all! I have liked an eye here, a cheek there, a foot and ankle yonder, a fine figure in this place, a merry laugh in another, spirit in a third, meekness in a fourth, but I have never seen one, that had all these traits and characteristics blended, that measured up to my own ideal."

"And what is your ideal, may I ask? You will forgive my curiosity. I am less a man than I seem." It was verging on the truth with a vengeance. "I have lived sequestered most of my life, and you cannot think how it interests me to have the views of so experienced a man of the world and so veteran a soldier as yourself upon this subject."

He looked sharply at me as I sat at the head of the table toying with my glass, as if he suspected some hidden meaning in my words, but I never appeared more innocent and guileless in my life than at that moment.

"Well," said he, "'tis a strange turn the conversation hath taken, but I know not why I should not humour you. My ideal maid, then, will be a woman who is first of all tall, about your own size. She shall have hair of sunshine colour and eyes of blue, and her cheek shall be fair to contrast with my own dark visage. In shape she shall be plump, not slender. Her hands shapely and white, but strong. I want none of your puling, lackadaisical, sentimental misses. She shall be a woman of spirit, one with courage enough not to run a-squeak at the sight of a mouse, one that can handle a sword or press the trigger of a weapon and discharge it without shutting her eyes at the report, one who can ride by my side if need be. As for learning, I want none of your dull and stupid minxes. Let her be read so that she can talk about something beside fallals, furbelows, children, and housewifery; one who could meet me on some terms of equality, who can preside gracefully over my establishment and mother my many children."

I thanked God that the candle-light did not disclose the furious colour in my cheek.

"Think you," said I, "that such a woman would be a good mother?"

"She would bring forth a race of soldiers," was the answer, "which is what I should like best to father."

"And what have you," I asked, forgetting that I was not a man in my indignation at his unbounded and condescending assurance, "to offer in exchange for this female paragon you have described?"

"What have I to offer?" He started to his feet violently and leaned over the table. "This is past endurance, sir," he said in sudden temper, striking the board hotly with his fist. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing offensive," I returned quickly, endeavouring to keep my temper and be calm as his anger rose. "'Tis but a jest. I meant no offence."

His temper subsided as suddenly as it had arisen.

"As you say," he answered, after a moment's reflection; "'tis idle talk. You ask what I have to offer? Truth to tell, I never thought of it in that way."

"But would it not be fair," I asked, "to take stock of the qualities to be exchanged for those you have demanded?"

"Fair, yes; but a man hardly likes to appraise himself; in fact, I doubt that he can do it truthfully. Yet I'll try. I am thirty-two, heart-whole and fancy-free, the possessor of a rentroll of five or six thousand a year, hold a commission in the King's Guards, am sound in wind and limb, good in temper, possess some small learning which I got at Oxford, and—faith, that's all."

I laughed. I could not help it.

"That's the assurance of mankind," I said at last. "Do you give me leave to speak frankly about you?"

"I invite you to do so," returned the captain complacently.

"Here you are, just an ordinary, commonplace soldier approaching middle life, of good birth and reasonable fortune, declaring that nothing can suit you but the never-to-be-realised ideal you have described."

"You are, indeed, frank," returned Sir Hugh resentfully.

"I am," I answered, "and I will be more so. If you wish, I will give you my own ideal of womankind."

"I should like to hear what your vast experience has evolved," returned the other, somewhat sarcastically.

"She shall be small, tender, meek, adoring, dark of hair and eye, dainty and nice of taste and appearance. She shall hang upon my words, attempt no equality with me, come to my hand, and..."

"You want a dog, not a woman," said the captain, laughing. "When you have seen more, your views will differ."

"It may be."

"And what, pray, is your ideal man?" he asked lightly.

"He shall be tall and strong and brave and true, with bright hair and blue eyes, a soldier by profession, and fierce to all the world but reserving his tender side for me.... I mean for the woman that he loves," I added hastily to cover my slip. "He shall worship her and think her as far above him as the stars."

"You ought to marry your ideal man to your ideal woman," interposed the captain jocosely, "and see what the result would be. 'Fore God, sir, I'd like to observe such a union. Meanwhile, give me leave as an older man. We have talked enough sentiment for a boxful of French romances. It hath made me thirsty. Another bottle of wine, pray." He rapped on the table as he spoke, and bade it brought. "And then, when the remains of our supper shall be cleared away, I propose that we pass an hour in play before we retire for the night. I at least must make an early start to-morrow."

"I am agreeable," said I. "We have exchanged views upon our ladies and their cavaliers, and I am willing to back my luck against your own."

"With what shall we play?"

"With dice," I answered. "At any game of skill with such a veteran as you I would be at too great a disadvantage."

"True," said the captain, looking me over carefully. "Thou art a queer lad, but I like thee."

"The regard is mutual," said I. "What shall the stakes be?"

"Let us play for shillings," he said after a thoughtful moment.

His intent was so obvious that I could not bear the imputation.

"Nay, for guineas!" I cried.

"Done," said the captain. "Here's rare sporting blood, I see."

When we parted for the night an hour later, Captain Richmond was near a hundred pounds richer than when he sat down. It was purely a game of chance, this throwing of the dice, and yet, I know not how it was, luck was steadily against me. I had sense enough to reserve a few guineas for my roadway needs, but with the rest I had played desperately till all were gone.

It was the first time that I had ever tempted fortune with the ivory. My father had never allowed me so to do. The fascination of it was great, but hardly enough to compensate for the repentance I felt for even this modest depletion of the totally inadequate store that Master Dunner would be able to gather for our great purpose.

Too late. I was horror-struck at my folly and my imprudence. Something of my feelings must have appeared in my face, for, on a sudden, Captain Richmond pushed the heap of guineas across the table toward me.

"There, lad," he said most courteously, "I did but jest with you. Take thy guineas back. We have had a pleasant evening together, and I shall be happier if your gold is in your own purse rather than in mine."

But this I could not brook.

"Sir," said I, "I may appear a poor loser, but 'tis in appearance only. You have fairly won the stakes and they are yours. Nay," I cried as I saw him about to speak again, "to protest further would be to insult me!"

"As you will," said the captain coolly, "and, if I may say so, I congratulate you upon being a good loser. You shall have your revenge another time, with Fortune, I trust, in a more complacent mood. Which way do you ride to-morrow?"

"To Edinburgh," I answered.

"Do you make an early start?"

"At daybreak," I replied.

"We shall ride together then and discourse further."

"Upon our ladies?" I asked impudently to cover my dismay.

"Nay, upon your commission in my company," he answered.

"With all my heart," said I.

"Here's to our further acquaintance," he continued, pouring himself another glass of wine. "And so, good-night."