Graham of Claverhouse Part 3

"Let me say plainly, Mr. Graham, that you are a soldier whom any commander will be glad to enroll for life service in his army, but"--and here his Highness looked searchingly at Graham as he had once done before--"I doubt whether your calling be in the Dutch army or in any army that is of our mind or is likely to fight for our cause.

"It is not given to man to lift the veil that hides the future, but we can reason with ourselves as to what is likely, and guide our course by this faint light. I have advices from Scotland, and I know that the day will come, though it may not be yet, when there will be a great division in that land and the shedding of blood. Were you and I both in your country when that day comes, you, Mr. Graham, would draw your sword on one side and I on the other.

"We may never cross one another in the unknown days, but each man must be true to the light which G.o.d has given him. Colonel MacKay will fulfil his calling in our army and on our side; in some other army and for another side you will follow your destiny. It is seldom I speak at such length; now I have only one other word to say before I give you for the day farewell.

"Mr. Graham, I know what you think of me as clearly as if you had spoken. Let me say what I think of you. You are a gallant gentleman, full of the ideas of the past, and incapable of changing; you will be a loyal servant to your own cause, and it will be beaten. To you I owe my life. Possibly it might have been better for you to have let me fall by the sword of one of Conde's dragoons, but we are all in the hands of the Eternal, Who doeth what He wills with each man. You will receive to-day a captain's commission in the cavalry, and in some day to come, I do not know how soon, and in a way I may not at present reveal to you, I will, if G.o.d please, do a kindness to you which will be after your own heart, and enable you to rise to your own height in the great affair of life. I bid you good-morning."

Few men were ever to hear the Prince of Orange use as many words or give as much of his mind. As Claverhouse realized his fairness and understood, although only a little, then, of his foresight, and as he came to appreciate the fact that the Prince was trying to do something more lasting for him than merely conferring a commission, he was overwhelmed with a sense of the injustice he had done his Highness. He also realized his own petulance with intense shame.

"Will your Highness forgive my wild words, for which I might have been justly punished"--Graham, with an impulse of emotion, stepped forward, knelt down, and kissed the Prince's hand--"and the shame I put upon a Scots gentleman, for which I shall apologize this very day. My sword is at your Highness's disposal while I am in your service and this arm is able to use it. If in any day to come it be my fate to stand on some other side, I shall not forget I once served under a great commander and a most honorable gentleman, who dealt graciously with me."

Two years pa.s.sed during which Captain Graham saw much fighting and many of his fellow-officers fall, and it was in keeping with the character of the Prince that during all that time he took no special notice of Claverhouse, and gave no indication that he had that interview in mind. Claverhouse had learned one lesson, however--patience--and he would have many more to learn; he had also been taught not to take hasty views, but to wait for the long result. And his heart lifted when, after the abortive siege of Charleroi, he was summoned for a second time to the Prince's presence.

On this occasion the Prince said little, but it was to the point; it was the crisis in Claverhouse's life.

"Within a few days, Captain Graham," said the Prince, with the same frozen face, "I leave for London. I may not speak about my errand nor other things which may happen, but if it be your will, I shall take you in attendance upon me. At the English court I may be able to give you an introduction which will place you in the way of service such as you desire, and if it be the will of G.o.d, high honor. For this opportunity, which I thought might come some day, I have been waiting, and if it be as I expect, you will have some poor reward for saving the life of the Prince of Orange."

It was known by this time in the army, and, indeed, throughout Europe, that William of Orange was going to wed the Princess Mary, who was the daughter of the Duke of York, the King of England's brother, and likely to be herself the daughter of an English sovereign. For certain reasons it seemed an unlikely and incongruous alliance, for even in the end of 1677, when the marriage took place, anyone with prescience could foresee that there would be a wide rift between the politics of the Duke of York when he became King and those of William, and even then there must have been some who saw afar off the conflict which ended in William and Mary succeeding James upon the throne of England.

There were many envied Claverhouse when it came out that he was to be a member of the Prince's suite, and be a.s.sociated with the Prince's most distinguished courtiers. But he carried himself, upon the whole, with such graciousness and gallantry that his brother officers congratulated him on every hand, and feasted him so lavishly before he left that certain of his own comrades of the Prince's guard were laid aside from duty for several days. It was to the credit of both men that on the morning of his departure one of his last visitors was Colonel MacKay, who wished him success, and prophesied that they would hear great things of him in days to come, since it was understood that Claverhouse would not return to the Dutch service.

For some time after the arrival of the Prince and his staff in London, William gave no sign of the good he was going to do Claverhouse.

Indeed, he was busy with the work of his wooing and the arrangements for his marriage. Claverhouse by this time had learned, however, that William forgot nothing and never failed to carry out his plans, and his pulse beat quicker when the Prince requested him to be in attendance one afternoon, and to accompany him alone to Whitehall, where the Duke of York was in residence. There was a certain superficial likeness in character between the Prince and his father-in-law, for both appeared unfeeling and unsympathetic men, but what in James was obstinacy, in William was power, and what in James was superst.i.tious, in William was religion, and what in James was pride, in William was dignity. His friends could trust William, but no one could trust James; while William could make immense sacrifices for his cause, James could wreck his cause by an amazing blindness and a foolish grasping at the shadow of power. If anyone desired a master under whom he would be led to victory, and by whom he would never be put to shame, a master who might not praise him effusively but would never betray him, then let him, as he valued his life and his career, refuse James and cleave to William. But it is not given to a man to choose his creed, far less his destiny, and Claverhouse was never to have fortune on his side. It was to be his lot rather to be hindered at every turn where he should have been helped, and to run his race alone with many weights and over the roughest ground.

"Your Highness has of your courtesy allowed me to present in public audience the officers who have come with me from The Hague," said the Prince of Orange to James, "and now I have the pleasure to specially introduce this gentleman who was lately a captain in my cavalry, and who some while ago rendered me the last service one man can do for another. Had it not been for his presence of mind and bravery of action, I had not the supreme honor of waiting to-day upon your Highness, and the prospect of felicity before me. May I, with the utmost zeal towards him and the most profound respect towards your Highness, recommend to your service Mr. Graham of Claverhouse, who distinguished himself on many fields of battle, and who is a fine gentleman and a brave officer fit for any post, civil or military. I will only say one thing more: he belongs to the same house as the Marquis of Montrose, and has in him the same spirit of loyalty."

Claverhouse, overcome by the remembrance of the past, is stirred to the heart, and can hardly make his reverence for emotion. As he kisses James's hand he registers a vow which he was to keep with his life.

And when he has left the presence of the Duke, the Prince of Orange said to Claverhouse's new master: "You have, sir, obtained a servant who will be faithful unto death; I make him over to you with confidence and with regret. This day, I believe, he will begin the work to which he has been called, and so far as a man can, he will finish it."

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

A COVENANTING HOUSE

The glory of Paisley Castle has long departed, but it was a brave and well-furnished house in the late spring of 1684, to which this story now moves. The primroses were blooming in sheltered nooks, where the keen east wind--the curse and the strength of Scotland--could not blight them, and the sun had them for his wooing; there were signs of foliage on the trees as the buds began to burgeon, and send a shimmer of green along the branches; the gra.s.s, reviving after winter, was showing its first freshness, and the bare earth took a softer color in the caressing sunlight. The birds had taken heart again and were seeking for their mates, some were already building their summer homes. Life is one throughout the world, and the stirring of spring in the roots of the gra.s.s and in the trunks of the trees touches also human hearts and wakes them from their winter. The season of hope, which was softening the clods of the field, and gentling the rough ma.s.sive walls of the castle, were also making tender the austere face of a Covenanting minister standing in one of the deep window recesses of what was called in Scots houses of that day the gallery, and what was a long and magnificent upper hall, adorned with arms and tapestry.

He was looking out upon the woods that stretched to the silver water of the Clyde, then a narrow and undeveloped river, and to the far-away hills of Argyleshire, within which lay the mystery of the Highlands.

Henry Pollock had been born of a Cavalier and Episcopalian family, with blood as loyal as that of Claverhouse; he had been brought up amid what the Covenanters called malignant surroundings, and had been taught to regard the Marquis of Montrose as the first of Scotsmen and the most heroic of martyrs. Although the senior of Claverhouse by two years, he had been with him at St. Andrew's University, and knew him well, but in spite of his heredity Pollock had ever carried a more open mind than Graham. During his university days he had heard the saint and scholar of the Covenant, Samuel Rutherford, who was princ.i.p.al and professor in the university and a most distinguished preacher of his day in Scotland. No doubt Rutherford raged furiously against prelacy as a work of the devil, and the enemy of Scots freedom; no doubt he also wrote books which struck hard at the authority of the King, and made for the cause of the people. His name was a reproach among Pollock's friends, and Pollock began with no sympathy towards Rutherford's opinions, but the lad's soul was stirred when, in the college chapel of St. Andrew's and also in the parish kirk where Rutherford was colleague with that servant of the Lord Mr.

Blair, he listened to Rutherford upon the love of G.o.d and the loveliness of Christ. One day he was present, standing obscure among a ma.s.s of townsfolk, when Rutherford, after making a tedious argument on the controversies of the day which had almost driven Pollock from the Kirk, came across the name of Christ and then, carried away out of his course as by a magnet, began to rehea.r.s.e the t.i.tles of the Lord Jesus till a Scots n.o.ble seated in the kirk cried out, "Hold you there, Rutherford." And Pollock was tempted to say "Amen." With his side he resented the Covenanting regime, because it frowned on gayety and enforced the hateful Covenant, but even then the lad wished that his side had preachers to be compared with Rutherford and Blair, and the words of Rutherford lay hidden in his heart. When the Restoration came he flung up his cap with the rest of them, and drank only too many healths to King Charles. For a while he was intoxicated with the triumph of the Restoration, but there was a vein of seriousness in him as well as candor, and as the years pa.s.sed and the people were still drinking, and as the tyranny of Cromwell gave place to the brutality of the infamous crew, Lauderdale, the renegade, and others, who misruled Scotland in the name of the King, Pollock was much shaken, and began to wonder within himself whether the Presbyterians, with all their bigotry, may not have had the right of it. If they did not dance and drink they prayed and led G.o.d-fearing lives, and if they would not be driven to hear the curates preach, there was not too much to hear if they had gone. When the Covenant was the symbol of oppression, Pollock hated it, when it became the symbol for suffering he was drawn to it, till at last, to the horror of his family, he threw in his lot with the Covenanters of the west of Scotland. Being a lad of parts with competent scholarship, and having given every pledge of sincerity, he was studying theology in Holland, while Claverhouse was fighting in the army of the Prince, and he was there ordained to the ministry of the kirk. When one has pa.s.sed through so thorough a change, and sacrificed everything which is most dear for his convictions, he is certain to be a root and branch man, and to fling himself without reserve, perhaps also, alas, without moderation, into the service of his new cause. Pollock was not of that party in the kirk which was willing to take an indulgence at the hands of the government and minister quietly in their parishes, on condition that they gave no trouble to the bishops. He would take no oaths and sign no agreements, nor make any compromise, nor bow down to any persecutor. He threw in his lot with the wild hillmen, who were being hunted like wild birds upon the mountains by Claverhouse's cavalry, and as he wandered from one hiding place to another, he preached to them in picturesque conventicles, which gathered in the cathedral of the Ayrshire hills, and built them up in the faith of G.o.d and of the Covenant. Like Rutherford, who had been to him what St. Stephen was to St. Paul, he was that strange mixture of fierceness and of tenderness which Scots piety has often bred and chiefly in its dark days. He was not afraid to pursue the doctrine of Calvin to its furthest extreme, and would glorify G.o.d in the death of sinners till even the stern souls of his congregation trembled. Nor was he afraid to defend resistance to an unjust and unG.o.dly government, and he was willing to fight himself almost as much, though not quite, as to pray.

But even the gloomiest and bitterest bigots that heard him, huddled in some deep mora.s.s and encircled by the cold mist, testified that Henry Pollock was greatest when he declared the evangel of Jesus, and besought his hearers, who might before nightfall be sent by a b.l.o.o.d.y death into eternity, to accept Christ as their Saviour. When he celebrated the sacrament amid the hills, and lifted up the emblems of the Lord's body and blood, his voice broken with pa.s.sion, and the tears rolling down his cheeks, they said that his face was like that of an angel. Times without number he had been chased on the moors; often he had been hidden cunningly in shepherd's cottages, twice he had eluded the dragoons by immersing himself in peat-bogs, and once he had been wounded. His face could never at any time have been otherwise than refined and spiritual, but now it was that of an ascetic, worn by prayer and fasting, while his dark blue eyes glowed when he was moved like coals of fire, and the golden hair upon his head, as the sun touched it, was like unto an aureole. Standing in the embrasure of that gallery, which had so many signs of the world which is, in the pictures of sport upon the walls and the stands of arms, he seemed to be rather the messenger and forerunner of the world which is to come.

As he looks out upon the fair spring view, he is settling something with his conscience, and is half praying, half meditating, for, in his lonely vigils, with no company but the curlew and the sheep, he has fallen upon the way of speaking aloud.

"There be those who are called to live alone and to serve the Lord night and day in the high places of the field, like Elijah, who was that prophet, and John the Baptist, who ran before the face of the Lord. If this be Thy will for me, oh, G.o.d, I am also willing, and Thou knowest that mine is a lonely life, and that I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. If this be my calling, make Thy way plain before Thy servant, and give me grace to walk therein with a steadfast heart. He that forsaketh not father and mother ... and wife for His name's sake, is not worthy." And then a change came over his mood.

"But the Master came not like the Baptist; He came eating and drinking; yea, He went unto the marriage of Cana in Galilee, and He blessed little children and said, 'For of such is the Kingdom of G.o.d.'

Thou knowest, Lord, that I have loved Thy children, and when a bairn has smiled in my face as I baptized it into Thy name, that I have longed for one that would call me father. When I have seen a man and his wife together by the fireside, and I have gone out to my hiding-place on the moor, like a wild beast to its den, I confess, oh, Lord, I have watched that square of light so long as I could see it, and have wondered whether there would ever be a home for me, and any woman would call me husband. Is this the weakness of the flesh; is this the longing of the creature for comfort; is this the refusing of the cross; is this my sin? Search me, oh, G.o.d, and try me." And again the gentler mood returned. "Didst Thou not set the woman beside the man in the Garden? Has not the love of Jacob for Rachel been glorified in Thy word? Art not Thou Thyself the bridegroom, and is not the kirk Thy bride? Are we not called to the marriage supper of the Lamb? Is not marriage Thine own ordinance, and shall I count that unclean, as certain vain persons have imagined, which Thou hast established? Oh, my Saviour, wast Thou not born of a woman? My soul is torn within me, and unto Thee, therefore, do I look for light; give me this day a sign that I may know what Thou wouldst have me to do, that it may be well for Thy cause in the land, and the souls of Thy servants committed to my charge."

He is unconscious of everything except the agony of duty through which he is pa.s.sing, and his words, though spoken low, have a sweet and penetrating note, which arrest the attention of one who has come down the gallery, and is now standing at the opening of the alcove where Pollock is hidden. It is his hostess, the widow of Lord Cochrane, the eldest son of the Earl of Dundonald, who was still living, though old and feeble, and who left the management of affairs very much to Lady Cochrane. Like many other families in the days of the "Troubles," the Cochranes was a house divided against itself, although till now the strength had been all on one side. Lord Dundonald had been a loyal adherent of the Stuarts, and had rendered them service in earlier days, for which it was understood he had received his earldom; but he was a broken man now, and had no strength in him to resist his masterful daughter-in-law. She was a child of the Earl of Ca.s.sillis, one of the stoutest and most thoroughgoing of Covenanters; her husband had died in the year when the Battle of Bothwell-Brig had been fought, and his last prayers were for the success of the Covenanters. His younger brother had been one of the Rye House Plot men, and was now an exile for the safety of his life in Holland. By her blood and by her sympathy, by everything she thought and felt, Lady Cochrane was a Covenanter, and in her face and figure, as she stands with the light from the window falling upon her, she symbolizes her cause and party. Tall and strong-boned, with a lean, powerful face, and clear, unrelenting eyes, yet with a latent suggestion of enthusiasm which would move her to any sacrifice for what she judged to be righteousness, and with an honest belief in her religious creed, Lady Cochrane was one of the G.o.dly women of the Covenant. The old Earl had no chance against her resolute will, and contented himself with a quavering protest against her ideas, and bleating disapproval of her actions. When she denounced the Council as a set of Herods, and filled the house with Covenanting ministers and outlawed persons, his only comfort and sympathizer was Lady Cochrane's daughter Jean. This young woman had of late taken on herself the office of protector, and had shown a tendency to criticise both her mother's words and ways, which led to one or two domestic scenes. For though her ladyship was loud against the tyranny of the government, she was an absolute ruler in her own home. And that day she was going to a.s.sert herself and put down an incipient rebellion.

"I give you good-morning, Mr. Pollock," said Lady Cochrane, "and I crave your pardon if I have done amiss, but since you were, as I take it, wrestling in prayer I had not the mind to break in upon you; I have therefore heard some portion of your pet.i.tions. It seems to me, though in such matters I am but blind of eye and dull of hearing, that G.o.d indeed is giving a sign of approval when He seems to have been turning your heart unto the thought of the marriage between the bridegroom and the bride in the Holy Scriptures, of which other marriages are, I take it, a shadow and a foretaste."

"It may be your ladyship is right," said Pollock after he had returned his hostess's greeting, "but we shall soon know, for G.o.d hath promised that light shall arise unto the righteous. For myself, I declare that as it has happened on the hills when I was fleeing from Claverhouse, so it is now in my affairs. I am moving in a mist which folds me round like a thin garment; here and there I see the light struggling through, and it seems to me most beautiful even in its dimness; by and by the mist shall altogether pa.s.s, and I shall stand in the light, which is the shining of His face. But whether I shall then find myself at Cana of Galilee or in the Garden of Gethsemane, I know not."

"If it were in my handling," said Lady Cochrane, regarding her guest with a mixed expression of admiration and pity, "ye would find yourself, and that without overmuch delay, at a marriage feast. The dispensation of John Baptist is done with in my humble judgment, and I count the refusing to marry to be pure will-worship and a soul-destroying snare of the Papists. Ye are a good man, Mr. Henry, and a faithful minister of the Word, but ye would be a better, with fewer dreams and more sense for daily duty, besides being more comfortable, if you had a wife. Doubtless the days are evil, and there be those who would say that this is not a time to marry, but if you had the right wife it is no unlikely ye might be safer than ye are to-day. For there would be a big house to hide you, and, at the worst, you and she could make your ways to Holland, and get shelter from the Prince till those calamities be overpast."

"My fear," continued her ladyship, "is not that ye will do wrong in marrying, but that ye may fail to win the wife ye told me yesterday was your desire. No, Mr. Henry, it is not that I am not with you, for I am a favorer of your suit. In those days when the call is for everyone to say whether he be for G.o.d or Baal, I would rather see my daughter married to a faithful minister of the kirk, than to the proudest n.o.ble in Scotland, who was a persecutor of the Lord's people.

As regards blood, I mind me also that ye belong to an ancient house, and as regards t.i.tles, it was from King Charles the earldom came to the Cochranes, and the most of the n.o.bles he has made have been the sons of his mistresses. There will soon be more disgrace than honor in being called a lord in the land of England."

"It may be," hazarded Pollock anxiously, "that the Earl then does not look on me with pleasure, and as the head of the house----"

"As what?" said Lady Cochrane. "It is not much his lordship has to say on anything, for his mind is failing fast, and it never, to my seeing, was very strong. He says little, and it's a mercy he has less power, or rather, I should say, a dispensation of Providence, for if the misguided man had his way of it, Jean would be married to-morrow to some drinking, swearing officer in Claverhouse's Horse, or, for that matter, to that son of Satan, Claverhouse himself."

"While I am here," continued this Covenanting heroine, "you need not trouble yourself about the Earl of Dundonald, but I cannot speak so surely for my daughter. Jean's name was inserted in the Covenant, and she has been taught the truth by my own lips, besides hearing many G.o.dly ministers, but I sorely doubt whether she be steadfast and single-hearted. It was only two days ago she lent her aid to her grandfather when he was havering about toleration, and before all was done she spoke lightly of the contendings of G.o.d's remnant in this land, and said that if they had the upper hand Scotland would not be fit to live in. So far as I can see she has no ill-will to you, Mr. Henry, and has never said aught against you. Nay, more, I recall her speaking well of your goodness, but whether she will consent unto your plea I cannot prophesy. Where she got her proud temper and her stubborn self-will pa.s.ses my mind, for her father was an exercised Christian and a douce man, and there never was a word of contradiction from him all the days of our married life. It may be the judgment of the Lord for the sins of the land, that the children are raising themselves against their parents. Be that as it may, I have done my best for you, and now I will send her to the gallery and ye must make your own suit. I pray G.o.d her heart may be turned unto you."

When the daughter came down the middle of the gallery, with an easy and graceful carriage, for she was a good goer, it would seem as if the mother had returned, more beautiful and more gentle, yet quite as strong and determined. Jean Cochrane--whose proper style as a lord's daughter would be the Honorable Jean, but who, partly because she was an earl's granddaughter, partly in keeping with the usage of the day, was known as Lady Jean--was like her mother, tall and well built, straight as a young tree, with her head set on a long, slender neck, and in conversation thrown back. Her complexion was perfect in its healthy tone and fine coloring; she had a wealth of the most rich and radiant auburn hair, somewhat like that of Pollock, but redder and more commanding to the eye; her eyes were sometimes gray and sometimes blue, according to their expression, which was ever changing with her varying moods. This is no girl of timid or yielding nature who can be coaxed or driven, or of clinging and meek affection. This is a woman full grown, not in stature only, but in character, of high ambition, of warm pa.s.sion, of resolute will and clear mind, who is fit to be the mate for a patriot, in which case she would be ready to accompany him to the scaffold, or for a soldier, in which case she would send him to his death with a proud heart. Her mobile face, as flexible as that of a supreme actress, is set and hard when she enters the gallery, for she and her mother had just crossed swords, and Lady Jean knew for what end she had been asked to meet the Covenanter. Lady Cochrane was an unhappy advocate for such a plea, and with such a daughter, although she might have been successful with a helpless and submissive girl. With that look in her eyes, which are as cold as steel and have its glitter, one could not augur success for any wooer. It was a tribute not so much to the appearance of Pollock as to the soul of the man shining through his face in most persuasive purity and sincerity, that when they met and turned aside into that window s.p.a.ce and stood in the spring sunlight, her face softened towards him. The pride of her carriage seemed to relax, and the offence went out of her eyes, and she gave him a gracious greeting, and no woman, if she had a mind, could be more ingratiating. Then, still standing, which suited her best, and looking at him with not unfriendly gravity, she waited for what he had to say.

"Lady Jean," he began, "your honorable mother has told you for what end I desired speech with you this day, and I ask you to give me a fair hearing of your kindness, for though I have been called of G.o.d to declare His word before many people, I have no skill in the business to which I now address myself. In this matter of love between a man and a maid I have never before spoken, and if I succeed not to-day, shall never speak again. Bear with me when I explain for your better understanding of my case, that I began my life in the faith of my family, and that I came into the Covenant after I was a man. I was called, as I trust of G.o.d, unto the ministry of the Evangel, and I have exercised it not in quiet places, but in the service of G.o.d's people who are scattered and peeled among the hills. It seemed therefore of my calling that I should live as a Nazarite and die alone, having known neither wife nor child, and indeed this may be my lot." Having said so much, as he looked not at the girl but out of the window, he now turned his face upon her, which, always pale, began now to be ashen white, through rising emotion and intensity of heart.

"Two years ago I first came to this castle and saw you; from time to time upon the errands of my master or sheltering from my pursuers I have lived here, and before I knew it I found my heart go out to you, Lady Jean, so that on the moors I heard your voice in the singing of the mountain birds, and saw your face with your burning hair in the glory of the setting sun. The thought of you was never far from me, and the turn of your head and your step as you have walked before me came ever to my sight. Was not this, I said to myself, the guidance of the Lord in Whose hands are the hearts of men, and Who did cause Isaac to cleave to Rebecca? But, again, might it not be that I was turning from the way of the cross and following the desires of my own heart? I prayed for some token, and fourteen days ago this word in the Song of Solomon came unto me, and was laid upon my heart. 'Behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair, thou hast dove's eyes within thy locks, thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead.'

Wherefore I make bold to speak to you to-day, and on your reply will hang the issue of my after life." His eyes had begun to shine with mystic tenderness and yearning appeal, so that she, who had been looking away from him, could not now withdraw her gaze.

"Is there in your heart any kindness and confidence towards me, and have you been moved to think of me as one whom you could wed and whose life you could share? It is not to wealth nor to honor, it is not to ease and safety that I invite you, Lady Jean; you must be prepared to see me suffer, and you must be willing that I should die. What I could do to protect and cherish you, if G.o.d gave you to me, I should, and next to the Lord who redeemed me, you would be the love of my heart in time and also in eternity, where we should follow the Lord together, unto living fountains of waters."

It was not the wooing of quieter days or gentler lives; it was not after this fashion that a Cavalier would have spoken to his ladylove, but his words were in keeping with the man, and streamed from the light of his eyes rather than from his lips. And the girl, who had come to say no as briefly and firmly as might be consistent with courtesy, was touched in the deepest part of her being, and for the moment almost hesitated.

"Ye have done me the chief honor a man can offer to a woman, Mr.

Pollock, and Jean Cochrane will never forget that ye asked her in marriage. It cannot be, and it is better that I should say this without delay or uncertain speech, but I pray you, Mr. Henry, understand why, and think me not a proud or foolish girl. It is not that I do not know that you are a holy and a brave man, whom the folk rightly consider to be a saint, and whom others say would have made a gallant soldier. It is not that I doubt the woman ye wedded would be well and tenderly loved, for, I confess to you, ye seem to me to have the making of a perfect husband. And it is not that I"--and here she straightened herself--"would be afraid of any danger, or any suffering either, for myself or you. I should bid it welcome, and if I saw you laid dead for the cause ye love, I should take you in my arms and kiss you on the mouth, though you were red with blood, as I never kissed you living on our marriage day." And she carried her head as a queen at the moment of her coronation.

"No," she went on, while the glow faded and her voice grew gentle; "it is for two reasons, but one of them I tell you only to yourself, in the secrecy of your honor. I admire and I--reverence you as one lifted above me like a saint, but this is not the feeling of a woman for the man that is to be her husband. I do not love you as I know I shall in an instant love the man who is to be my man when I first see him, and for whom I shall forsake without any pang my father's house, or else, if he appear not, I shall never wed. That mayhap is reason enough, but I am dealing with you as a friend this day. Though my name be in the Covenant, I am not sure--oh, those are dark times--whether I would write it to-day with my own hand. I might be able to do so when I was your wife, but that I may not be. Yet it is left to me, Mr. Henry, to have your name in my prayers, that G.o.d may keep you in the hard road ye have chosen, and give you in the end a glorious crown. And I will ask of you to mention at a time Jean Cochrane before the throne of grace. For surely ye will be heard, and blessed shall she be for whom ye pray."

For an instant there was silence, and then, before she left, Lady Jean, as Pollock stood with head sunk on his breast and lips moving in prayer, bent forward and kissed him on the forehead. When an hour later the minister descended to Lady Cochrane's room, he told her that his suit was hopeless, but that he was thankful unto G.o.d that he had spoken with Lady Jean.

CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF THE AMALEKITE

It would have been hard to find within the civilized world a more miserable and distracted country than Scotland at the date of our history, and the West Country was worst of all. The Covenanters, who were never averse to fighting, had turned upon Claverhouse and his dragoons when they came to disperse a field-meeting at Drumclog, and had soundly beaten the King's Horse. Then, gathering themselves to a head and meeting the royal forces under the Duke of Monmouth at Bothwell Bridge, they had in turn been hopelessly crushed. What remained of their army was scattered by the cavalry, and since that day, with some interludes, Claverhouse had been engaged in the inglorious work of dispersing Presbyterian Conventicles gathered in remote places among the hills, or searching the moss-hags for outlawed preachers. It was a poor business for one who had seen war on the grand scale under the Prince of Orange, and had fought in battles where eighteen thousand men were left on the field. War was not the name for those operations, they were simply police work of an irksome and degrading kind. There were some who said that Claverhouse gloried in it, and that the inherent cruelty of his nature was gratified in causing obstinate Covenanters, who had not taken the oath, to be shot on the spot, and haling others to prison, where they were treated with extreme barbarity. Others believed that being a man of broad mind and chivalrous temper, he absolutely disapproved of the government policy and loathed the butcher work to which he and his troopers were set.

Upon one way of it he was a bloodthirsty tyrant, and upon the other he was an obedient soldier, but the truth was with neither view. There is no doubt that, like any other ambitious commander, he would much rather have been engaged in a proper campaign, and it may be granted that as a brave man he did not hanker to be the executioner of peasants; but he absolutely approved of the policy of his rulers, and had no scruple in carrying it out. It was the only thing that could be done, and it had better be done thoroughly; the sooner the turbulent and irreconcilable Covenanters were crushed and the country reduced to peace the better for Scotland. And it must be remembered that, though they were only a fraction of the nation, the hillmen were a very resolute and hara.s.sing fraction, and kept the western counties in a state of turmoil. No week pa.s.sed without some picturesque incident being added to the annals of this lamentable religious war, and whether it was an escape or an arrest, an attack or a defeat, the name of Claverhouse was always in the story. The air was thick with rumors of his doings, and in every cottage enraged Covenanters spoke of his atrocities. No doubt the king had other officers quite as merciless and almost as active, and the names of men like Grierson of Lag and Bruce of Earleshall and that fierce old Muscovite fighter, General Dalziel, were engraved for everlasting reprobation upon the memory of the Scots people. But there was no superst.i.tion so mad that it was not credited to Claverhouse, and no act so wicked that it was not believed of him.

During the hours of day he ranged the country, a monster thirsting for the blood of innocent men, and the hours of the evening he spent with his a.s.sociates in orgies worthy of h.e.l.l. His horse, famous for its fleetness and beauty, was supposed to be an evil spirit, and as for himself, everyone knew that Claverhouse could not be shot except by a silver bullet, because he was under the protection of the devil. Perhaps it is not too much to say that during those black years--black for both sides, and very much so for Claverhouse--he was, in the imagination of the country folk, little else than a devil himself, and it was then he earned the t.i.tle which has clung to him unto this day and been the sentence of his infamy, "b.l.o.o.d.y Claverse."