Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 76

"I then desired one of the servants to call a chair, and I went to the d.u.c.h.ess of Montrose, who had always borne a part in my distresses. She came to me; and as my heart was in an ecstasy of joy, I expressed it in my countenance as she entered the room. I ran up to her in the transport of my joy. She appeared to be exceedingly shocked and frighted, and has since confessed to me that she apprehended my trouble had thrown me out of myself till I communicated my happiness to her. She then advised me to retire to some place of security, for that the king was highly displeased, and even enraged, at the pet.i.tion I had presented to him, and had complained of it severely, and then said she would go to court and see how the news of my lord's escape was received. When the news was brought to the king, he flew into an excess of pa.s.sion, and said he was betrayed; for it could not have been done without some confederacy. He instantly despatched two persons to the Tower to see that the other prisoners were secure, lest they should follow the example. Some threw the blame upon one, some upon another. The d.u.c.h.ess was the only one at court who knew it.

"When I left the d.u.c.h.ess, I went to a house which Evans had found out for me, and where she promised to acquaint me where my lord was. She got thither some few minutes after me, and took me to the house of a poor woman, directly opposite to the guard-house, where my lord was. She had but one small room, up one pair of stairs, and a very small bed in it.

We threw ourselves upon the bed, that we might not be heard walking up and down. She left us a bottle of wine and some bread, and Mrs. Mills brought us some more in her pocket next day. We subsisted on this provision from Thursday till Sat.u.r.day night, when Mrs. Mills came and conducted my lord to the Venetian amba.s.sador's. We did not communicate the affair to his excellency; but one of his servants concealed him in his own room till Wednesday, on which day the amba.s.sador's coach-and-six was to go down to Dover to meet his brother. My lord put on a livery, and went down in the retinue, without the least suspicion, to Dover, where M. Michel (the amba.s.sador's servant) hired a small vessel and immediately set sail for Calais. The pa.s.sage was so remarkably short that the captain threw out this reflection, that the wind could not have served better if his pa.s.sengers had been flying for their lives, little thinking it to be really the case.

"For my part," continues Lady Nithsdale, "I absconded to the house of a very honest man in Drury Lane, where I remained till I was a.s.sured of my lord's safe arrival on the Continent. I then wrote to the d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleugh and entreated her to procure leave for me to go with safety about my business. So far from granting my request, they were resolved to secure me, if possible. After several debates it was decided that if I remained concealed no further search should be made, but that if I appeared either in England or Scotland I should be secured."

On first hearing of her husband's apprehension, she had thought it prudent to conceal many important family papers and other valuables, and having no person at hand with whom they could be safely entrusted, had hid them underground, in a place known only to the gardener, in whom she could entirely confide. This had proved a happy precaution, for, after her departure, the house had been searched, and, as she expressed it, "G.o.d only knows what might have transpired from those papers." In addition to the danger of their being discovered, there was the imminent risk of their being destroyed by damp, so that no time must be lost in regaining them before too late. She therefore determined on another journey to the north, and, for greater secrecy, on horseback, though this mode of travelling, which was new to her, was extremely fatiguing.

She, however, with her maid, Mrs. Evans, and a servant that could be depended on, set out from London, and reached Traquhair in safety and without any one being aware of her intentions. Here she ventured to rest two days, in the society of her sister-in-law and Lord Traquhair, feeling security in the conviction that, as the lord-lieutenant of the county was an old friend of her husband's, he would not allow any search to be made after her without first giving her warning to abscond. From thence she proceeded to Terreagles, whither it was supposed she came with the permission of Government; and to keep up that opinion, she invited her neighbours to visit her. That same night she dug up the papers from their hiding-place, where happily they had sustained no injury, and sent them at once, by safe hands, to Traquhair. This was accomplished just in time, for the magistrates of Dumfries began to entertain suspicions of her right to be there, and desired to see her leave from Government. On hearing this, "I expressed," she says, "my surprise that they had been so backward in paying their respects; 'but,'

said I, 'better late than never: be sure to tell them that they shall be welcome whenever they choose to come.' This was after dinner; but I lost no time to put everything in readiness, but with all possible secrecy; and the next morning, before daybreak, I set off again for London, with the same attendants, and, as before, I put up at the smallest inns, and arrived safe once more."

George I. could not forgive Lady Nithsdale for the heroic part she had acted: he refused, in her case, the allowance or dower which was granted to the wives of the other lords. "A lady informed me," she says, "that the king was extremely incensed at the news; that he had issued orders to have me arrested, adding that I did whatever I pleased, despite of all his designs, and that I had given him more trouble than any woman in all Europe. For which reason I kept myself as closely concealed as possible, till the heat of these rumours had abated. In the meanwhile, I took the opinion of a very famous lawyer, who was a man of the strictest probity: he advised me to go off as soon as they had ceased searching for me. I followed his advice, and, in about a fortnight after, I escaped without any accident whatever."

She met her husband and children at Paris, whither they had come from Bruges to meet her. They soon afterwards joined the Pretender's court at Avignon; but, finding the mode of life there little to their taste, shortly after returned to Italy, where they lived in great privacy.

Lord Nithsdale lived, after his escape, nearly thirty years, and died at Rome in 1744. His wife survived him five years: she had the comfort of having provided a competency for her son by her hazardous journey to Terreagles, though his t.i.tle and princ.i.p.al estates had been confiscated by his father's attainder. He married Lady Catherine Stewart, daughter of the Earl and Countess of Traquhair. Her daughter, the Lady Anne Maxwell, became the wife of Lord Bellew.