so. Gad! You’re like to keep sheep by moonlight,” chuckled Creagh.
“Nonsense! They would never hang me,” I cried.
“Wouldn’t, eh! Deed, and I’m not so sure. The hue and cry is out for you.”
“Havers, man!” interrupted Macdonald sharply. “You’re frightening the lady with your fairy tales, Creagh. Don’t you be believing him, my dear. The hemp is not grown that will hang Kenneth.”
But for all his cheery manner we were mightily taken aback, especially when another rider came in a few minutes later with a letter to me from town. It ran:—
Dear Montagu,
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” Our pleasant little game is renewed. The first trick was, I believe, mine; the second yours. The third I trump by lodging an information against you for highway robbery. Tony I shall not implicate, of course, nor Mac-What’s-His-Name. Take wings, my Fly-by-night, for the runners are on your heels, and if you don’t, as I live, you’ll wear hemp. Give my devoted love to the lady. I am,
Your most obedt servt to command, Robt Volney.
In imagination I could see him seated at his table, pushing aside a score of dainty notes from Phyllis indiscreet or passionate Diana, that he might dash off his warning to me, a whimsical smile half-blown on his face, a gleam of sardonic humour in his eyes. Remorseless he was by choice, but he would play the game with an English sportsman’s love of fair play. Eliminating his unscrupulous morals and his acquired insolence of manner, Sir Robert Volney would have been one to esteem; by impulse he was one of the finest gentlemen I have known.
Though Creagh had come to warn me of Volney’s latest move, he was also the bearer of a budget of news which gravely affected the State at large and the cause on which we were embarked. The French fleet of transports, delayed again and again by trivial causes, had at length received orders to postpone indefinitely the invasion of England. Yet in spite of this fatal blow to the cause it was almost certain that Prince Charles Edward Stuart with only seven companions, of whom one was the ubiquitous O’Sullivan, had slipped from Belleisle on the Doutelle and escaping the British fleet had landed on the coast of Scotland. The emotions which animated us on hearing of the gallant young Prince’s daring and romantic attempt to win a Kingdom with seven swords, trusting sublimely in the loyalty of his devoted Highlanders, may better be imagined than described. Donald Roy flung up his bonnet in a wild hurrah, Aileen beamed pride and happiness, and Creagh’s volatile Irish heart was in the hilltops. If I had any doubts of the issue I knew better than to express them.
But we were shortly recalled to our more immediate affairs. Before we got back to the inn one of those cursed placards offering a reward for my arrest adorned the wall, and in front of it a dozen open-mouthed yokels were spelling out its purport. Clearly there was no time to be lost in taking Volney’s advice. We hired a chaise and set out for London within the hour. ’Twas arranged that Captain Macdonald and Hamish Gorm should push on at once to Montagu Grange with Aileen, while I should lie in hiding at the lodgings of Creagh until my wounds permitted of my travelling without danger. That Volney would not rest without attempting to discover the whereabouts of Miss Macleod I was well assured, and no place of greater safety for the present occurred to me than the seclusion of the Grange with my brother Charles and the family servants to watch over her. As for myself, I was not afraid of their hanging me, but I was not minded to play into the hands of Volney by letting myself get cooped up in prison for many weeks pending a trial while he renewed his cavalier wooing of the maid.
Never have I spent a more doleful time than that which followed. For one thing my wounds healed badly, causing me a good deal of trouble. Then too I was a prisoner no less than if I had been in The Tower itself. If occasionally at night I ventured forth the fear of discovery was always with me. Tony Creagh was the best companion in the world, at once tender as a mother and gay as a schoolboy, but he could not be at home all day and night, and as he was agog to be joining the Prince in the North he might leave any day. Meanwhile he brought me the news of the town from the coffee-houses: how Sir Robert Walpole was dead; how the Camerons under Lochiel, the Macdonalds under Young Clanranald, and the Macphersons under Cluny had rallied to the side of the Prince and were expected soon to be defeated by Sir John Cope, the Commander-in-Chief of the Government army in Scotland; how Balmerino and Leath had already shipped for Edinburgh to join the insurgent army; how Beauclerc had bet Lord March a hundred guineas that the stockings worn by Lady Di Faulkner at the last Assembly ball were not mates, and had won. It appeared that unconsciously I had been a source of entertainment to the club loungers.
“Sure ’tis pity you’re mewed up here, Kenn, for you’re the lion of the hour. None can roar like you. The betting books at White’s are filled with wagers about you,” Creagh told me.
“About me?” I exclaimed.
“Faith, who else? ‘Lord Pam bets Mr. Conway three ponies against a hundred pounds that Mr. Kenneth Montagu of Montagu Grange falls by the hand of justice before three months from date,’” he quoted with a great deal of gusto. “Does your neck ache, Kenn?”
“Oh, the odds are in my favour yet. What else?” I asked calmly.
“‘Mr. James Haddon gives ten pounds each to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and to Sir Robert Volney and is to receive from each twenty guineas if Mr. K. Montagu is alive twelve months from date.’ Egad, you’re a topic of interest in high quarters!”
“Honoured, I’m sure! I’ll make it a point to see that his Royal Highness and my dear friend Volney lose. Anything else?”
“At the coffee-house they were talking about raising a subscription to you because they hear you’re devilish hard up and because you made such a plucky fight against Volney. Some one mentioned that you had a temper and were proud as Lucifer. ‘He’s such a hothead. How’ll he take it?’ asks Beauclerc. ‘Why, quarterly, to be sure!’ cries Selwyn. And that reminds me: George has written an epigram that is going the rounds. Out of some queer whim—to keep them warm I suppose—Madame Bellevue took her slippers to bed with her. Some one told it at the club, so Selwyn sat down and wrote these verses:
“‘Well may Suspicion shake its head—
Well may Clorinda’s spouse be jealous,
When the dear wanton takes to bed
Her very shoes—because they’re fellows.’”
Creagh’s merry laugh was a source of healing in itself, and his departure to join the Prince put an edge to the zest of my desire to get back into the world. Just before leaving he fished a letter from his pocket and tossed it across the room to me.
“Egad, and you are the lucky man, Kenn,” he said. “The ladies pester us with praises of your valour. This morning one of the fair creatures gave me this to deliver, swearing I knew your whereabouts.”
’Twas a gay little note from my former playmate Antoinette Westerleigh, and inclosed was a letter to her from my sister. How eagerly I devoured Cloe’s letter for news of Aileen may be guessed.
My Dearest ’Toinette:—
Since last I saw you (so the letter ran) seems a century, and of course I am dying to come to town. No doubt the country is very healthy, but Lud! ’tis monstrous dull after a London season. I vow I am already a lifetime behind the fashions. Is’t true that prodigious bustles are the rage? And while I think of it I wish you would call at Madame Ronald’s and get the lylack lute-string scirt she is making for me.
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