The Billow and the Rock Part 21

She walked straight in: and as she did so, one of the gentlemen who was standing before the fire glanced at another who was walking up and down.

"We need no sentinels here, my lord," said the latter in reply to the glance. "There are none but women and children on the island, and they are all loyally disposed."

"This is Sir Alexander Macdonald," said the hostess to Annie. And then she told the chief that this was the Widow Fleming, who had no doubt come to obtain tidings of her son, who had gone with the company under Macleod.

"The Lord President will give you more exact news of the company than I can," said Sir Alexander. "I only know that my people are marched to Aberdeen to protect that city from the insolence of the rebels."

The President, who was sitting by the fire, looked up kindly, and cheerfully told the widow that he had good news to give of the company from these islands. They had not been in any engagement, and were all in good health when they marched for Aberdeen, a fortnight before. "And are they all in their duty, my lord?"

"You remind me, friend, that I ought to have put that before my account of their health and safety. They are in their duty, being proof, so far, against both threat and seduction from the rebels."

"Thus far?"

"Why, yes; I used those words because their loyalty to the king is likely to be tried to the utmost at the present time. The king's cause is in adversity, we will hope only for a short time. The rebels have won a battle at Falkirk, and dispersed the king's troops; and this gentleman, the Earl of Loudon," pointing to the one who was standing by the fire, "and I have had to run away from my house at Culloden, and throw ourselves on the hospitality of Sir Alexander Macdonald."

"And what will become of your house, my lord?"

"I have thrown my house and fortune into the cause, as you have thrown something much more important--your son. If you can wait G.o.d's disposal cheerfully, much more should I. I cannot bestow a thought on my house."

"Except," said Sir Alexander, "that you have nothing else to think about here; and nothing to do but to think, for this day, at least. We must remain here. So safe as it is, in comparison with any part of Skye, or even Barra, I should recommend your staying here till we have some a.s.surance of safety elsewhere."

"I will venture to offer something for the Lord President to think of and to do," said the widow, coming forward with an earnestness which fixed everybody's attention at once, and made Sir Alexander stop in his walk. He was about to command silence on Annie's part, but a glance at her face showed him that this would be useless.

"Let me first be sure that I am right," said Annie. "Is the Lord President whom I speak to named Duncan Forbes? And is he a friend of Lord Ca.r.s.e?"

"I am Duncan Forbes, and Lord Ca.r.s.e is an acquaintance of mine."

"Has he ever told you that his unhappy wife is not dead, as he pretended, but living in miserable banishment on this island?"

"On this island! Nonsense!" cried Sir Alexander.

When a.s.sured by the hostess and Annie that it was so, he swore at his steward, his tenant, and himself. On first hearing of the alarm being taken by the lady's friends at Edinburgh, he had ordered her removal to Saint Kilda, and had supposed it effected long ago. The troubles of the time, which left no boat or men disposable, had caused the delay; and now, between his rage at any command of his having been disregarded, and his sense of his absurdity in bringing a friend of his prisoner to her very door, he was perfectly exasperated. He muttered curses as he strode up and down.

Meantime the Lord President was quietly preparing himself for a walk.

Everybody but Annie entreated him to stay till he had breakfasted, and warmed himself, Lord Loudon adding that the lady would not fly away in the course of the next hour if she had been detained so many years. It did not escape the President's observant eye that these words struck Sir Alexander, and that he made a movement towards the door. There being a boat and rowers at hand, she might be found to have flown within the hour, if he stayed to breakfast.

He approached Sir Alexander, and laid his hand on his arm, saying--

"My good friend, I advise you to yield up this affair into my hands as the first law officer of Scotland. All chance of concealment of this lady's case has been over for some time. Measures have been taken for some months to compel you to resign the charge which you surely cannot wish to retain--"

Sir Alexander broke in with curses on himself for having ever been persuaded into involving himself in such a business.

"By the desire, I presume, of Lord Ca.r.s.e, Lord Lovat, Mr Forster, and others, not now particularly distinguished for their loyalty."

"That is the cursed part of it," muttered Sir Alexander. "It was to further their Jacobite plots that they put this vixen out of the way, because she had some secrets in her power, and they laid it all on her temper, which, they told me, caused my lord to go in fear of his reputation and his life."

"There was truth in that, to my knowledge," observed the President; "and there were considerations connected with the daughters--natural considerations, though leading to unnatural cruelty."

"Politics were at the bottom, for all that," said the chief, "And now, as she has been my prisoner for so long, I suppose they will throw the whole responsibility upon me. The rebel leaders hate me for my loyalty as they hate the devil. They hate me--"

"As they hate Lord Loudon and myself," interposed the President, "which they do, I take it, much more bitterly than they ever did the devil.

But, Sir Alexander, let me point out to you that your course in regard to this lady is now clear. If the rebellion succeeds, let the leaders find that you have taken out of their hands this weapon, which they might otherwise use for your destruction. Let them find you acting with me in restoring the lady to her rights. If, as I antic.i.p.ate, the rebellion is yet to fail, this is still your only safe course. It will afford you the best chance of impunity--which impunity, however, it is not for me to promise--for the illegality and the guilt of your past conduct to the victim. There is something in our friend's countenance here," he continued, turning to the widow with a smile, "which I should like to understand. I fear I have not her good opinion, as I could wish."

Annie told exactly what she was thinking: that all this reasoning was wrong, because wasteful of the right. Surely it was the shortest and clearest thing to say that, late as it was, it was better for Sir Alexander to begin doing right than persist in the wrong.

"I quite agree with you," said the President, "and if people generally were like you, we should be saved most of the argumentation of our law courts--if, indeed, we should need the courts at all, or, perhaps, even any human law. Come, Sir Alexander, let me beg your company to call on Lady Ca.r.s.e. One needs the countenance of the chief, who is always and everywhere welcome in his own territory, to excuse so early a visit."

Sir Alexander positively declined going. He was, in truth, afraid of the lady's tongue in the presence of a legal functionary, before whom he could neither order nor threaten violence.

It was a great relief to Annie that he did not go. She needed the opportunity of the walk to prepare the President to meet his old acquaintance, and to speak wisely to her.

Even the President, with his habitual self-possession, could not conceal his embarra.s.sment at the change in Lady Ca.r.s.e. The light from the window shone upon her face; yet he glanced at the widow, as in doubt whether this could be the right person, before he made his complaints.

In the midst of her agitation at the meeting, Lady Ca.r.s.e said to herself that the good man was losing his memory; and, indeed, it was time; for he must be above sixty. She wondered whether it was a sign that her husband might be losing his faculties too: but she feared Duncan Forbes was a good deal the older of the two.

It would have astonished those who did not know Duncan Forbes to see him now. He was a fugitive from the rebels, who might at the moment be burning his house, and impoveris.h.i.+ng his tenants; he had been wandering in the mountains for many days, and had spent the last night upon the sea; his clothes were weather-stained, his periwig damp, and his buckles rusted; he was at the moment weary and aching with cold and hunger; he was in the presence of a lady whom he had for years supposed dead and buried; and he was under the shock of seeing a face once full of health and animation now not only wasted, but alive with misery in every fibre: yet he sat on a bench in this island dwelling--in his eyes a hovel--with his gold-headed cane between his knees, talking with all the courtesy, calmness, and measured cheerfulness, which Edinburgh knew so well.

Nothing could be better for Lady Ca.r.s.e than his manner. It actually took away the sense of wonder at their meeting, and meeting thus. While he had stood at the threshold, and she heard whom she was to see, her brain had reeled, and her countenance had become such as it might well dismay him to see; but such was the influence of his composure, and of the a.s.sociations which his presence revived, that she soon appeared in Annie's eyes a totally altered person. As the two sat at breakfast, Annie saw before her the gentleman and lady complete, in spite of every disguise of dress and circ.u.mstance.

At the close of the meal, Annie slipped away to her own house: but it was not long before she was sent for, at the desire, not of Lady Ca.r.s.e, but of the President. He wished her to hear what he had to relate. He told of Mr Hope's exertions in Edinburgh, and of his having at length ventured upon an illegal proceeding for which only the disturbance of the times could be pleaded in excuse. He had sent out a vessel, containing a few armed men, and Mrs Ruthven, who had undertaken to act as guide to Lady Ca.r.s.e's residence. It was understood that the captain had set Mrs Ruthven ash.o.r.e in Lorn, through some disagreement between them; and that the vessel had proceeded as far as Barra, when the captain was so certainly informed that the lady had been removed to the mainland that he turned back; pleading, further, that there was such evident want of sense in Mrs Ruthven, and such contradictory testimony between her and her husband, that he doubted whether any portion of their story was true. It was next believed that a commission of enquiry would be soon sent to this and other islands: but this could not take place until the public tranquillity should be in some degree restored.

"Before that, I shall be dead," sighed Lady Ca.r.s.e, impatiently.

"There is no need now to wait for the commission," said the President.

"Where I am, all violations of the law must cease. Your captivity is now at an end, except in so far as you are subject to ill health, or, like myself, to winter weather and most wintry fortunes."

"The day is come, then," said Annie, through s.h.i.+ning tears. "You are now delivered out of the hand of man, and have to wait only G.o.d's pleasure."

"What matters it," murmured Lady Ca.r.s.e, "how you call my misfortunes?

Here I sit, a s.h.i.+vering exile--"

"So far like myself," observed the President, moving nearer the scanty fire.

"You have not been heart-sick for years under insufferable wrongs,"

declared Lady Ca.r.s.e. "And you have not the grave open at your feet while everything you care for is beckoning to you to come away. You--"

"Pardon me, my old friend," said he, mildly. "That is exactly my case.

I am old: the grave is open at my feet; and beyond it stands she who, though early lost, has been the constant pa.s.sion of my life. Perhaps my heart may have pined under the privation of her society as sensibly as yours under afflictions more strange in the eyes of the world. But it is not wise--it does not give strength, but impair it--thus to compare human afflictions. I should prefer cheerfully encouraging each other to wait for release; I see little prospect of any release this day for us exiles; so let me see what my memory is worth in my old age--let me see what I can recall of our Janet. You know I always consider Janet my own by favouritism; and she called me grandfather the last time we met, as she used to do before she was able to spell so long a word."

He told so much of Janet, that Lady Ca.r.s.e changed her opinion about his loss of memory. Again Annie stole home: and there did the President seek her, after a long conversation with her neighbour.

"I wish to know," said he, "whether the great change that I observe in this lady is recent."

"She is greatly changed within a few months," replied the widow: "and I think she has sunk within a few days. I see, sir, that you look for her release soon."

"If the change has been rapid of late," he replied, "it is my opinion that she is dying."

"Is there anything that you would wish done?" asked Annie.

"What can we do? I perceive that she is in possession of what is perhaps the only aid her case admits of--a friend who can at once soothe her earthly life, and feed her heavenly one."