Book 2 — Chapter XII

In which I, Sir Hugh Richmond, who tell this Tale, find that it is easier to marry Lady Katharine Clanranald than to keep her for my own

Being a soldier and a veteran of many an out-fall and on-fall, of frequent battle and stubborn leaguer, I know that to get and to keep are two entirely different operations. To have and to hold, which go together in the phrase, are not always associated in life, especially in a soldier's life.

Through a series of the most romantic adventures and perils, which she herself most gallantly, with some slight assistance from me, had overcome, I had got myself a wife; but as I stood on the low bluff near Cockenzie that afternoon and watched her being borne away, swiftly away from me, by a small boat to a smart brigantine hove to in the offing, it seemed to me that I had won her but to lose her.

Enlarged from prison by her woman's wit and married that very morning, I had counted myself the happiest of men; now I was the most miserable. Exiled by the King, my estates confiscate, broke in rank—these I could have borne. But to find my wife torn from me by force of arms, myself regarded with sudden hatred and suspicion by those by whom I was surrounded, surely I might have been forgiven if I had fallen into utter despair.

But I was a soldier, I had bided the shock in many a stricken field, and I knew that the battle was not lost or won whiles I, or the enemy, could keep that field. Therefore I did not despair; on the contrary, I was white hot with growing rage.

The Majesty of England was a large thing. I was but a poor soldier, an outlaw and an exile, a proscribed man, a death sentence hanging over my head if I were found within the confines of the three kingdoms within four days. So far so good, no worse sentence could be passed upon me. If I failed, I would liefer die than not without Lady Katharine Clanranald—this morning by the grace of God become Lady Katharine Richmond, and my wife. Losing her, I did not care what happened to me.

I was a tried and veteran soldier, a seasoned man of the world, yet the passion that I had so suddenly developed for this splendid woman might have amazed even me, had I been capable of considering it from any point of detachment. I had met with many women in my life, some good and some bad,—the latter, I am afraid, predominating; and I had been drawn in touch with all classes from the peasant to the great dame of the court, but I had never seen anybody who united in her own proper person so many, or I believe I may say all, of the qualities I loved in woman as Katharine Clanranald. Not only her beauty, which was incomparable and unsurpassable, but her wit, her bravery, her address, her—but the reader who has read her story, even though she so modestly told it herself, knoweth all this as well as I. Do you wonder that I felt reckless, friend, who read this rougher and blunter chronicle of mine, or that I came to instant and desperate resolution there on the shore?

The King basely, treacherously, but perhaps as monarchs went in those days, not unroyally, had taken my wife; I would take her back, I swore. I would pluck that coward fox from his very throne and, if I found a hair of her head had been injured, his life should pay for it, if I were to be hung, drawn, and quartered the next moment. I took a solemn oath to it by the Living God, as I stood there on the bluff.

It all happened this way. We were married in the morning, there was naught to keep us in Scotland, where Master Dunner—a gentleman, truly, even if an advocate—with Master Abadie's assistance, to whom I was much indebted, foreseeing the turn of affairs, had everything in readiness, every resource that the Earl could reasonably come at instantly available.

The quicker we escaped from the reach of so uncertain a monarch as James II., the better. All men knew him well enough, but I knew him best of all, for I had served long in his Guards, so we planned instant departure.

By good fortune we found a stout ship was sailing from Cockenzie for the Low Countries that very night. It was necessary to ride thither to take passage upon her. Master Dunner cast his fortunes in with those of his patron and kinsman, the Earl, and had elected to go with us. As we were proscribed people and found not many clamouring for service with us, we chose to go as we were, without servants or further tendance than what we ourselves could easily furnish each to the other.

My wife laughingly pointed out that I could appropriately play lady's-maid to her since she had played soldier laddie to me, and though my blunt fingers were better fitted to pistol butt and sword grip, I had no doubt that I could pass a lashing for her stays or join together a hook and eye, if main strength and determination and good will were necessary qualifications.

You have seen my lady dressed as a boy before, and you might have seen her wearing her brother's clothes again that day for better convenience in riding and travelling. I do not know whether I like her better in her proper woman's gear or in men's—to tell the truth she is adorable in either—but I had such sweet associations with the latter, she was more comrade and not less wife as she bestrode her horse gallantly booted and spurred and cantered by my side, that I was more than satisfied with her election. Never hoped I to find both comrade and wife in one woman.

I doubt not I behaved like a foolish boy. Anon I trolled out a stave of soldier song. In the lonesomer parts of the road I clapped her on the shoulder when I had a chance, as if she had been a boy; yet I recognised such colour as no boy ever sported come and go in her cheek under my touch as I drew her to me and kissed her as no boy was ever kissed.

I vow, if it had given her pleasure, I would have got down in the road and let her ride over me. She bewitched me, she possessed me, she does still for that matter, I am more fond and foolish now than ever. I can master with ease my turbulent regiment of soldiers of fortune with which we were getting ready for a great adventure toward England under Dutch William, but in truth she wound me around her finger then and ever.

Did the men of my command but know it I should have been disgraced forever, and it is only of her charity that she confines her sweet dominance over me to our lodgings, in the quiet of our chamber rather than in camp and court and field. I grow garrulous as an old woman when I think of her.

Now I know full well that a soldier should ever be on the alert, but I was as unsuspicious on that mid-day as any man that lived. Monmouth's rebellion had been stamped out with such thorough-going ferocity by that brute Jeffreys, that there was not even a whisper of disappointment heard; not one, not even among Scotsmen. Nor were there any gentlemen of the highway to be feared, and if there were we were all armed, and Katharine was as good as a fourth man.

We rode carelessly therefore, she and I in the advance, sometimes galloping ahead until screened behind a turn of the road or a clump of trees for an exchange of kisses unseen by the Earl and Master Dunner who jogged on behind sedately. We were approaching the outskirts of Cockenzie village when the road suddenly swerved around a thick woodland toward the bluff overlooking the sea, where I marked a small brigantine in the offing and pointed it out idly enough to my Lady Katharine.

"Will that be our ship, Hugh?" asked my wife, following my hand with her eyes.

"No, Kate, I think not," I replied after a careless glance. "'Tis too small a boat for such happiness as is ours, Sweet."

I had scarcely said the word when from out the wood which we were nearly approaching—the road running along the very verge of the low bluff that lifted it above the high tide—burst a score or more of men on foot. They were led by a person richly dressed whose features were covered with a black visard.

I had barely time to whisk out my sword and they were on us. One fellow bolder than the rest I had spitted with the blade, but it was jerked out of my hands. The next moment I was confronted by half a dozen heavy pistols, and the leader, he of the mask, cried:

"Yield you, Sir Hugh. A motion and we blow you from the saddle."

I might not have hesitated to take the risk, although it would have probably ended in my sudden death, had I not observed that the others of my party were alike menaced. I had fronted cold steel and had looked into the open mouth of musket and pistol, ay and of cannon, too, many times, but it gave me a thrill of horror to see my wife so threatened. I did not realise that she stood in no danger, or I might have acted differently. I made up my mind quickly, as a soldier needs must, and I said with a coolness I did not feel—on account of my dear wife:

"Your arguments are too strong for me, gentlemen. I suppose you have come for plunder; my purse is in my pocket, you'll find there is little enough in it, we are exiles proscribed by King James, and..."

"I don't want your purse, Sir Hugh Richmond," interposed the spokesman, drawing nearer to me. He stopped close by my side, and by a sudden impulse, for which I have ever been glad, before he could prevent it I reached over and twitched from his face with one quick movement of my hand the black mask that hid it. I recognised the man instantly.

"Stenwold!" I cried. "What does this mean?"

He was furiously angry at being discovered and showed it now.

"By Heaven!" he roared, "I could have you shot for that."

"And since when," I sneered, "has Lord Stenwold addressed himself to the cut-purse trade upon the King's Highway?":

Now I knew in an instant that my aggravating accusation was a false one; as in a flash I had divined the whole situation. Lord Stenwold was King James' most intimate friend, a man who would stop at nothing, honourable or dishonourable, to further His Majesty's desires. And I knew that King James, probably aided and abetted thereto by that arch-devil Jeffreys' counsel, had repented him of his clemency and that he wanted to gain possession of my wife, for what purpose I could well imagine.

I went white hot with wrath as these thoughts rushed over me. For a moment I had the baresark impulse to throw myself upon Stenwold and his gang and die fighting, and it was hard for me to restrain that impulse; yet it would have been madness, suicide, and it would have served no purpose, for it would have thrown Lady Katharine defenceless and without resource into the hands of the enemy. So, although my blood boiled in my veins, I retained an impassive front. Stenwold laughed mockingly.

"You play the game well," he said meaningly, "I didn't know you were so good an actor. I was charged to keep our agreement a secret from the lady here, but I see no need of it now. The King loyally and royally does as he said, here is your thousand pounds in gold." He laid a bulky purse across my saddle bow. "We take the lady, you the money, the King's pardon covers you for three days more, but if you be found in his realm thereafter God help you."

"Hugh," cried my wife, "what does this mean?"

"Hoity-toity," ran on that devil Stenwold, "my lady, you know very well what it means: it was all arranged between King James and yourself before you left Durham; I had His Majesty's word for it."

"Liar!" cried Lady Katharine viciously.

She was free enough of speech when the situation warranted it.

"You dog!" cried the Earl of Clanranald, leaning forward. "Do you mean to imply that my daughter——"

"The King's word——"

"Out upon the King's word. I wish to God, Monmouth——"

"Have a care, Lord Clanranald," interposed Stenwold darkly. "Your pardon I take it covers acts of the past, there is nothing to prevent me from re-arresting you and laying charges of high treason against you once more for abusing His Majesty's clemency."

"Damn his clemency and His Majesty too," roared the Earl, struggling to force his horse nearer the other. "If you are a gentleman, draw sword. I am old but I will prove you lie in your own heart's blood."

"I am not here to fight duels with men old enough to be my grandfather," answered Stenwold, coolly enough.

"With me then," I burst out.

The rogue answered me jeeringly again. He had the whip hand and he knew it.

"What benefit would it be if I spitted you or you spitted me on the road here? Besides it is all part of the game, as you know."

"You lie, in your soul," I cried, for the moment wrath getting the better of me, but Stenwold only laughed again that irritating, maddening laugh. God, how I itched to get my hand on his lying throat and shake the wretched pander to death.

"We have had enough of this," he said, turning away from me indifferently. "My lady, will you come peaceably or——"

"Hugh," cried Lady Katharine, bending toward me in wild terror, "you won't let them take me away from you?"

"Why, he hath sold you," said Stenwold. "The price hangs on his saddle bow. Come, I have no time for further parley."

Now what was I to do? Before God if I had let go of myself for a single moment I would have thrown myself upon him, yet I could have effected nothing; there were only four of us and one of us a woman, and they were a score and a half. If I had killed one or a dozen of them, what remained would have sufficed to carry out their purpose, and then what would be done with my wife?

In all that broad realm there was only one man who could succour her—myself! Was I to throw myself away uselessly and force her to shift for herself? Nay, I must bide my time; I must contain myself for her sake. Therefore, although to see her manhandled and ruthlessly dragged from her horse, torn from her saddle, almost killed me, I sat immobile on my own steed.

"Don't hurt her," said Stenwold, never looking my way, as if I was not worth further consideration. "We must deliver her in good condition to the King."

Katharine made a hard struggle, she was a strong, brave woman, but what chance had she? She looked at me appealingly, she called my name again and again, but I made no response. Presently realising the absolute futility of it, she stopped and stood shuddering on the road. Stenwold's bullies closed about her and forced her to where a small boat lay concealed beneath the bluff. Ere she descended she turned and gave me one look in which love and contempt struggled for the predominance. I dare say that I made a sorry figure, sitting my horse there on the strand with King James' guineas hanging across my saddle bow, unable to hold the wife who had risked so much for me.

"Good-by, Richmond," Stenwold called out quite airily as the boat, a large one capable of taking them all in, shoved off. "Any message for the King?"

"Thank his gracious Majesty," cried I bitterly, "for his royal conduct toward me and mine, and say to him that I hope to requite him to the full for all that he hath done."