Graham of Claverhouse Part 11

"Was there ever such a solemn face and cautious-spoken fellow living as you, Jock Grimond, though I've seen you take your gla.s.s, and unless my ears played me false, sing a song, too, round the camp-fire in days past. But I know the superst.i.tion that is in you and all your breed of Lowland Scots. Whether ye be Covenanters or Cavaliers, ye are all tarred with the same stick. Do ye really think, Jock, that the Almighty sits watching us, like a poor, jealous, cankered Whig minister, and if a bit of good fortune comes our way and our hearts are lifted, that He's ready to strike for pure bad temper? But there's no use arguing with you, for you're set in your own opinions. But I'll tell you what to do--sing the dreariest Psalm ye can find to the longest Cameronian tune. That will keep things right, and ward off judgment, for the blood in my veins is dancing, Jock, and the day of my life has come."

Claverhouse went out from his room to confer with the chiefs and his officers about the plan of operation, "like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." Grimond, as he watched him go, shook his head and said to himself, "The last time I heard a Covenanting tune was at Drumclog, and it's no a cheerfu'

remembrance. May G.o.d preserve him, for in John Graham is all our hope and a' my love."

Through the morning of the decisive day the omens continued favorable, and the sun still shone on Claverhouse's heart. As a rule, a war council of Highland chiefs was a babel and a battle, when their jealous pride and traditional rivalry rose to fever height. They were often more anxious to settle standing quarrels with one another than to join issue with the enemy; they would not draw a sword if their pride had in any way been touched, and battles were lost because a clan had been offended. Jacobite councils were also cursed by the self-seeking and insubordination of officers, who were not under the iron discipline of a regular army, and owing to the absence of the central authorities, with a king beyond the water, were apt to fight for their own hand. Dundee had known trouble, and had in his day required more self-restraint than nature had given him, and if there had been division among the chiefs that day, he would have fallen into despair; but he had never seen such harmony. They were of one mind that there could not be a ground more favorable than Killiecrankie, and that they should offer battle to MacKay before the day closed.

They approved of the line of march which Dundee had laid out, and the chiefs, wonderful to say, raised no objection to the arrangement of the clans in the fighting line, even although the MacDonalds were placed on the left, which was not a situation that proud clan greatly fancied. The morning was still young when the Jacobite army left their camping ground in the valley north of Blair Castle, and, climbing the hillside, pa.s.sed Lude, till they reached a ridge which ran down from the high country on their left to the narrow pa.s.s through which the Garry ran. Along this rising ground, with a plateau of open ground before them, fringed with wood, Dundee drew up his army, while below MacKay arranged his troops, whom he had hastily extricated from the dangerous and helpless confinement of the pa.s.s. During the day they faced one another, the Jacobites on their high ground, William's troops on the level ground below--two characteristic armies of Highlanders and Lowlanders, met to settle a quarrel older than James and William, and which would last, under different conditions and other names, centuries after the gra.s.s had grown on the battle-field of Killiecrankie and Dundee been laid to his last rest in the ancient kirkyard of Blair. Had Dundee considered only his own impetuous feelings, and given effect to the fire that was burning him, he would have instantly launched his force at MacKay. He was, however, determined that day, keen though he was, to run no needless risks nor to give any advantage to the enemy. The Highlanders were like hounds held in the leash, and it was a question of time when they must be let go. He would keep them if he could, till the sun had begun to set and its light was behind them and on the face of MacKay's army.

During this period the messenger came back with an answer to the despatch which Dundee had sent to MacKay the night before. He had found William's general at Pitlochry, as he was approaching the pa.s.s of Killiecrankie, and, not without difficulty and some danger, had presented his letter.

"This man, sir, surrendered himself late last night to my Lord Belhaven, who was bivouacking in the pa.s.s which is ahead," said an English aide-de-camp to General MacKay, "and his lordship, from what I am told, was doubtful whether he should not have shot him as a spy, but seeing he had some kind of letter addressed to you, sir, he sent him on under guard. It may be that it contains terms of surrender, and at any rate it will, I take it, be your desire that the man be kept a prisoner."

"You may take my word for it, Major Lovel," said young Cameron of Lochiel, who, according to the curious confusion of that day, was with MacKay, while his father was with Dundee, "and my oath also, if that adds anything to my word, that whatever be in the letter, there will be no word of surrender. Lord Dundee will fight as sure as we are living men, and I only pray we may not be the losers. Ye be not wise to laugh," added he hotly, "and ye would not if ye had ever seen the Cameron's charge."

"Peace, gentlemen, we are not here to quarrel with one another," said General MacKay. "Hand me the letter, and do the messenger no ill till we see its contents."

As he read his cheek flushed for a moment, and he made an impatient gesture with his hand, as one repudiating the shameful accusation, and then he spoke with his usual composure.

"You are right," he said, addressing Cameron, who was on his staff, "in thinking that Lord Dundee is ready for the fight. I had expected nothing else from him, for I knew him of old, the bigotry of his principles, and the courage of his heart. We could never be else than foes, but I wish to say, whatever happens before the day is done, that I count him a brave and honorable gentleman, as it pleases me to know he counts me also.

"This letter"--and MacKay threw it with irritation on the table of the room in which he had taken his morning meal, "is from Dundee explaining that two English officers have been arrested, who were serving as privates in his cavalry, and who are suspected of being sent by us to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. If no answer is sent back they will be hung at once, but if the charge is denied, they will be released, which, I take it, gentlemen, is merciful and generous conduct.

"I will write a letter with my own hand and clear our honor from this foul slander. Spying is allowed in war, though I have never liked it, and the spy need deserve no mercy, but a.s.sa.s.sination is unworthy of any soldier, and a work of the devil, of which I humbly trust I am incapable, and also my king. Give this letter"--when he had written and sealed it--"to the messenger, Major Lovel, and see that he has a safe conduct through our army, and past our outposts." Lovel saluted and left the room, but outside he laughed, and said to himself, "Very likely it's true all the same, and a quick and useful way of ending the war. When Claverhouse dies the rebellion dies, too, and there's a text somewhere which runs like this, 'It is expedient that one man should die than all the people.' I wonder who those fellows are, and if they'll manage it, and what they're going to get. They have the devil's luck in this affair, for, of course, MacKay would be told nothing about it; he's the piousest officer in the English army."

Dundee received MacKay's letter during the long wait before the battle, and this is what he read:

_To My Lord Viscount Dundee, Commanding the forces raised in the interest of James Stuart._

MY LORD: It gives me satisfaction that altho' words once pa.s.sed between us, and there be a far greater difference to-day, you have not believed that I was art and part in so base a work as a.s.sa.s.sination, and I hereby on my word of honor as an officer, and as a Christian, declare that I know nothing of the two men who are under arrest in your camp. So far as I am concerned their blood should not be shed, nor any evil befall them.

Before this letter reaches your hand we shall be arrayed against one another in order of battle, and though arms be my profession, I am filled with sorrow as I think that the conflict to-day will be between men of the same nation, and sometimes of the same family, for it seemeth to me as if brother will be slaying brother.

I fear that it is too late to avert battle and I have no authority to offer any terms of settlement to you and those that are with you. Unto G.o.d belongs the issue, and in His hands I leave it. We are divided by faith, and now also by loyalty, but if any evil befel your person I pray you to believe that it would give me no satisfaction, and I beg that ye be not angry with me nor regard me with contempt if I send you as I now do the prayer which, as a believer in our common Lord I have drawn up for the use of our army. It may be the last communication that shall pa.s.s between us.

I have the honor to be,

Your very obedient servant,

HUGH MACKAY.

Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Forces.

And this was the prayer, surely the most remarkable ever published by a general of the British army:

O Almighty King of Kings, and Lord of Hosts, which by Thy Angels thereunto appointed, dost minister both War and Peace; Thou rulest and commandest all things, and sittest in the throne judging right; And, therefore, we make our Addresses to Thy Divine Majesty in this our necessity, that Thou wouldst take us and our Cause into Thine Own hand and judge between us and our Enemies. Stir up Thy strength, O Lord, and come and help us, for Thou givest not always the Battle to the strong, but canst save by Many or Few. O let not our sins now cry against us for vengeance, but hear us Thy poor servants, begging mercy, and imploring Thy help, and that Thou wouldst be a defence for us against the Enemy. Make it appear, that Thou art our Saviour, and Mighty Deliverer, through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Dundee ordered the English officers to be brought before him, and for thirty seconds he looked at them without speaking, as if he were searching their thoughts and estimating their character. During this scrutiny the shorter man looked sullen and defiant, as one prepared for the worst, but the other was as careless and gay as ever, with the expression either of one who was sure of a favorable issue, or of one who took life or death as a part of the game.

"If I tell you, gentlemen, that your general refuses to clear you from this charge, have ye anything to say before ye die?"

"Nothing," said their spokesman, with a light laugh, "except that we would take more kindly to a bullet than a rope. 'Tis a soldier's fancy, my lord, but I fear me ye will not humor it; perhaps ye will even say we have not deserved it."

When Dundee turned to the other, who had not yet spoken, this was all he got:

"My lord, that it be quickly, and that no mention be made of our names. It was an adventure, and it has ended badly."

"Gentlemen, whoever ye may be, and that I do not know, and whatever ye may be about, and of that also I am not sure, I have watched you closely, and I freely grant that ye are both brave men. Each in his own way, and each to be trusted by his own cause, though there be one of you I would trust rather than the other.

"I have this further to say, that General MacKay declares that, so far as he knows, ye are innocent of the foul crime of which we suspected you. I might still keep you in arrest, and it were perhaps wiser to do so; but I have myself suffered greatly through mistrusting those who were true and honorable, and I would not wish to let the shadow of disgrace lie upon you, if indeed ye be honest Cavaliers. You have your liberty, gentlemen, to return to your troop, and if there be any grat.i.tude in you for this deliverance from death, ride in the front and strike hard to-day for our king and the ancient Scottish glory."

"Thank you, my lord, but I expected nothing else. I give you our word that we shall not fail in our duty," said the taller soldier, with a light-hearted laugh. But the other grew dark red in the face, as if a strong pa.s.sion were stirring within him. "My lord," he said, "I would rather remain as I am till the battle be over, and then that ye give me leave to depart from the army."

Dundee glanced keenly at him, as one weighing his words, and trying to fathom their meaning, but the taller man broke in with boisterous haste:

"Pardon my comrade, general, we Englishmen have proud stomachs, and ye have offended his honor by your charges, but to-day's fighting will be the best medicine." And then he hurried his friend away, and as they left to join their troop he seemed to be remonstrating with him for his touchy scruples.

"What ye may think of those two gentlemen I know not, my lord," said Lochiel, who had been standing by, "but I count the dark man the truer of the two. I like not the other, though I grant they both be brave.

He is fair and false, if I am not out in my judgment, with a smooth word and a tricky dirk, like the Campbells. G.o.d grant ye be not over-generous, and trustful unto blindness."

"Lochiel, I have trusted, as ye know, many men who have betrayed our cause; I have distrusted one who was faithful at a cost to me. On this day, maybe the last of my life, I will believe rather than doubt, in the hope that faith will be the surest bond of honor. There is something, I know not what, in that tall fellow I did not like. But what I have done, I have done, and if I have erred, Lochiel, the punishment will be on my own head."

"On many other heads, too, I judge," muttered Lochiel to himself, and for an instant he thought of taking private measures to hinder the two Englishmen from service that day, but considering that he would have enough to do with his own work, he went to prepare his clan for the hour that was near at hand.

Dundee dismissed his staff for the time on various duties, and attended only by Grimond, sat down upon a knoll, from which he could see the whole plateau of Urrard--the drawn-out line of his own army beneath him, and the corresponding formation of the English troops in the distance. He read MacKay's prayer slowly and reverently, and then, letting the paper fall upon the gra.s.s, Dundee fell into a reverie.

There was a day when he would have treated the prayer lightly, not because he had ever been a profane man, like Esau, but because he had no relish for soldiers who acted as chaplains.

To-day, with the lists of battle before his eyes, and the ordeal of last night still fresh in his experience, and his inexcusable cruelty to Jean, his heart was weighed with a sense of the tragedy of life and the tears of things. He was going to fight unto death for his king, but he was haunted by the conviction that William was a wiser and better monarch. MacKay and he were to cross swords, as before they had crossed words, and would ever cross principles, but he could not help confessing to himself that MacKay, in the service of the Prince of Orange, had for years been doing a more soldierly part than his, in hunting to the death Covenanting peasants. His Highlanders below, hungering for the joy of battle and the gathering of spoil, were brave and faithful, but they were little more than savages, and woe betide the land that lay beneath their sword; while the troops on the other side represented the forces of order and civilization, and though they might be routed that evening, they held the promise of final victory.

Was it worth the doing, and something of which afterwards a man could be proud, to restore King James to Whitehall, and place Scotland again in the hands of the gang of cowards and evil livers, thieves and liars who had misgoverned it and shamefully treated himself? What a confused and tangled web life was, and who had eyes to decipher its pattern? He would live and die for the Stuarts, as Montrose had done before him; he could not take service under William, nor be partner with the Covenanters. He could do none otherwise, and yet, what a Scotland it would be under James, and what a miserable business for him to return to the hunt of the Covenanters!

The buoyancy of the morning had pa.s.sed, and now his thoughts took a darker turn. MacKay, no doubt, had told the truth, for he was not capable of falsehood, but if those Englishmen were not agents of the English government, did it follow that they were clear of suspicion?

There was some mystery about them, for if indeed they had been Cavalier gentlemen who had abandoned the English service, would they be so anxious to conceal themselves? Why should they refuse to let their names be known? They had come from Livingstone's regiment. Was it possible that they had been sent by him, and if so, for what end?

It is the penalty of once yielding to distrust that a person falls into the habit of suspicion, and the latent jealousy of Livingstone began to work like poison in Dundee's blood. Jean was innocent, he would stake his life on that, but Livingstone--who knew whether the attraction of those interviews was Dundee's cause or Dundee's wife? If Livingstone had been in earnest, he had been with King James's men that day; but he might be earnest enough in love, though halting enough in loyalty. If her husband fell, he would have the freer course in wooing the wife. What if he had arranged the a.s.sa.s.sination, and not William's government; what if Jean, outraged by that reflection upon her honor and infuriated by wounded pride, had consented to this revenge? Her house had never been scrupulous, and love changed to hate by an insult such as he had offered might be satisfied with nothing less than blood. Stung by this venomous thought, Dundee sprang to his feet, and looking at the westering sun, cried to Grimond, who had been watching him with un.o.btrusive sympathy, as if he read his thoughts, "Jock, the time for thinking is over, the time for doing has come."

He rode along the line and gave his last directions to the army.

Riding from right to left, he placed himself at the head of the cavalry, and gave the order to charge. That wild rush of Highlanders, which swept before it, across the plain of Urrard, the thin and panic-stricken line of regular troops, was not a battle. It was an onslaught, a flight, a ma.s.sacre, as when the rain breaks upon a Highland mountain, and the river in the glen beneath, swollen with the mountain water, dashes to the lowlands with irresistible devastation.

Grimond placed himself close behind his master for the charge, and determined that if there was treachery in the ranks, the bullet that was meant for Dundee must pa.s.s through him. But the battle advance of cavalry is confused and tumultuous, as horses and men roll in the dust, and eager riders push ahead of their fellows, and no man knows what he is doing, except that the foe is in front of him. They were pa.s.sing at a gallop across the ground above Urrard House, when Grimond, who was now a little in the rear of his commander, saw him lift his right arm in the air and wave his sword, and heard him cry, "King James and the crown of Scotland!" At that instant he fell forward upon his horse's mane, as one who had received a mortal wound, and the horse galloped off towards the right, with its master helpless upon it. Through the dust of battle, and looking between two troopers who intervened, Grimond saw the fair-haired Englishman lowering the pistol and thrusting it into his holster, with which he had shot Dundee through the armpit, as he gave his last command. Onward they were carried, till one of the troopers on his right fell and the other went ahead, and there was clear course between Grimond and the Englishman. They were now, both of them, detached from the main body, and the Englishman was planning to fall aside and escape unnoticed from the field. His comrade could not be seen, and evidently had taken no part in the deed. Grimond was upon him ere he knew, and before he could turn and parry the stroke, Jock's sword was in him, and he fell mortally wounded from his horse. Keen as Grimond was to follow his master, and find him where he must be lying ahead, he was still more anxious to get the truth at last out of the dying man. He knelt down and lifted up his head.

"It is over with ye now, and thou hast done thy h.e.l.lish deed. I wish to G.o.d I'd killed thee before; but say before thou goest who was thy master--was it Livingstone? Quick, man, tell the truth, it may serve thee in the other world, and make h.e.l.l cooler."

"Livingstone," replied the Englishman with his dying breath, and a look of almost boyish triumph on his face, "what had I to do with him?

It was from my Lord Nottingham, his Majesty's secretary of state, I took my orders, and I have fulfilled them. Did I not lie bravely and do what I had to do thoroughly? Thou cunning rascal, save for thee I had also escaped. You may take my purse, for thou art a faithful servant. My hand struck the final blow." Now, his breath was going fast from him, and with a last effort, as Grimond dropped his head with a curse, he cried, "You have--won--the battle. Your cause is--lost."

Amid the confusion the cavalry had not noticed the fall of their commander, and Grimond found his master lying near a mound, a little above the house of Urrard. He was faint through loss of blood, and evidently was wounded unto death, but he recognized his faithful follower, and thanked him with his eyes, as Jock wiped the blood from his lips--for he was wounded through the lungs--and gave him brandy to restore his strength.

"Ye cannot staunch that wound, Jock, and this is my last fight. How goes it--is it well?"

"Well for the king, my lord--the battle is won; but ill for thee, my dear maister."

"If it be well for the king, it's well for me, Jock, but I wish to G.o.d my wound had been in front. That fair-haired fellow, I take it, did the deed. Ye killed him, did ye, Jock? Well, he deserved it, but I fain would know who was behind him before I die. If it were he whom I suspect, Jock, I could not rest in my grave."