Dillon Wallace - "The Lure of the Labrador Wild"

Joseph Smith - "The Wentworth Letter"

Joseph A. Altsheler - "The Sword of Antietam"

Tobias Smollett - "The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Part II."

The Yeoman Adventurer

G >> George W. Gough >> The Yeoman Adventurer




"I'm damned!" says he, and flops down into his elbow-chair.

* * * * *

In the end we made a treaty, to Mr. Wicks' great disgust, who saw the
guineas slipping through his fingers. Nor was the Squire less aggrieved at
first, for clearly it was to him a matter of high concern to nail Swift
Nicks.

"What's it matter to us here who's got a crown on his head in London?" he
said. "London-folk care nothing for us, and we care nothing for them. But
Swift Nicks does matter. We want him hung. No man about here with any
sense bothers about your politics except at election-times, when politics
means a belly full of beer and a fist full of guineas for every damned
tinker and tallow-chandler in Leicester. But you, or that bloody villain
Swift Nicks, if you a'nt him, keep us sweating-cold o' nights. To hell
with your politics! Hang me Swift Nicks!"

The terms of our treaty were that I was to remain peaceably and make a
night of it, giving my word to make no attempt to escape or harm anyone.
In the meantime, and at my proper charges, a post was to be sent to fetch
Nance Lousely and her father to give evidence on my behalf.

"DEAR GHOSTIE,"--I wrote to her,--"I am in great danger because a
red-nosed man vows I am Swift Nicks. I want you and your father to come
and prove he's an ass. If you don't I am to be hung on a gibbet at a place
called the Copt Oak, and I can't abide gibbets, for they are cold and
draughty. So come at once, my brave Nance!--Your friend,

"O. W."

A groom was fetched and I told him how to get to Job Lousely's. He was
well mounted from the Squire's stables and set off. However quickly he did
his business, it would be many hours before he could be back. So I settled
down to make a night of it.

There was nothing original in the Squire's way of making a night of it.
The parson who had been in at the death and who, during the settlement of
my affair, had been busy in the stables, now joined us at dinner. He was
but lately come from Cambridge, at which seat of learning the chief books
appeared to be Bracken's _Farriery_ and Gibson on the _Diseases of
Horses_, with Hoyle's _Whist_ as lighter reading for leisured
hours. He was a hard rider, a hard swearer, and a hard drinker, and, after
being double japanned, as he called it, by a friendly bishop, had been
pitchforked by the Squire into a neighbouring parish of three hundred a
year in order that the Squire's dogs and hounds, and the game and poachers
on the estate, might have the benefit of his ministrations. He had,
however, sense enough to buy good sermons. "At any rate the women tell me
they're good," explained the Squire. "I can't say for myself, for Joe's a
reasonable cock, and always shuts up as soon as I wake up."

The Bow Street runner, Mr. Wicks, and the red-nosed petty constable of
the hundred, who answered to the name of Pinkie Yates, were of the party.
I ate little and drank less, but the others emptied the bottles at a
great pace and were soon hot with drink. One brew, which the huntsmen
quaffed with much zest, I insisted, out of regard for my stomach, on
passing round untouched, though the men of law took their share like
heroes, and, I doubt not, thought they were for once hob-nobbing with the
gods. The manner of it was thus. The parson drew from his pocket a leg of
the fox they had killed that day, and, stinking, filthy, and bloody as it
was, squeezed and stirred it in a four-handled tyg of claret. In this evil
compound the Squire solemnly gave us the huntsman's toast:

"_Horses sound. Dogs hearty,
Earth's stopped, and Foxes plenty_."

The parson then hiccoughed a song for which he should have been put in
the stocks, after which Mr. Wicks, with three empty bottles and three
knives to stand for the gallows, gave us a vivid account of the
turning-off of the famous Captain Suck Ensor, who kicked and twitched for
ten minutes before his own claimed him.

It was five o'clock next morning before my courier returned with Nance
Lousely and her father. I had gone to sleep in the Squire's elbow-chair
before the hall fire, with the zealous thief-takers in attendance, turn
and turn about, as sentries over me, fifty guineas being well worth
guarding. The butler watched at the door, wakefully anxious to earn the
crown I had promised him. The noise he made in unchaining and unbolting
the door awakened me, and it warmed my heart to see Nance standing timidly
just inside the hall, her hand in her father's, till she spied me, when
she broke away and ran up to me.

"You knew I'd come, sir, didn't you?" she said, appealing to me more with
her pretty anxious face than by her words.

"Of course, ghostie!" I replied promptly.

"Thank you, sir!" she said, with evident relief. At a trace of doubt in
my words or face, she would have broken down.

"Don't be a goose, ghostie," said I. "Sit down and get warm! And how are
you. Job? Much obliged to you both."

"We'n ridden main hard to get here, sir. Your mon didna get t'our 'ouse
afore one o'clock, an' we wor on the way afore ha'f-past. Gom! We wor
that'n. Our Nance nearly bust. Gom, she did that'n."

"Your Nance is a darling," said I, stroking her disordered hair.

At my request backed by a promise to turn the crown into half a guinea,
the butler got them some breakfast. Fortunately the Squire and the parson
were due at a duck-shooting ten miles off by seven o'clock, and so were
stirring early. My matter was soon settled. The Squire sat magisterially
in his elbow-chair, and Nance and her father told their tale, precisely as
I had told it before them. It cleared me and made the thief-catchers look
mightily confused and sheepish, and very relieved they were when, as a
politic way of staving off awkward questions, I grandly accepted their
apologies.

"I knew you weren't Swift Nicks," said the Squire, "when I saw you
mending my lad's fishing-rod. Damme, we'll get him though, before we've
done."

He invited me to join him at breakfast, where we were alone for the first
time.

"Is it into the fire or into the fender?" he asked meaningly.

I was ready for him and, stopping with the carving knife half-way through
a fine ham I was slicing, said, as if amazed, "Is what into the fire or
into the fender?"

"The chestnut," said he.

"The chestnut!" I retorted.

"Well, well! I don't blame you for your caution, sir. Sir James Blount
sounded me and I know you know my reply. Whether fire or fender will make
no difference to me, and I wouldn't miss to-day's duck-shoot to make it
either."

"I hope there'll be plenty of birds, and strong on the wing," said I.

This ended all the talk that passed between us on the great event that
had so strangely brought us together. He, the squire of half a dozen
villages, went duck-shooting while the destiny of England was being
settled just outside his own door.

For the second time Nance walked a space by my side to wish me good-bye.

"Nance, my sweet lass," said I, pulling Sultan up, "do you know that
dirty little ale-house near your home?"

"Where the painted woman lives, sir?"

"That very place! Now Swift Nicks is hiding there. Go back and tell the
Squire you can find Swift Nicks for him, and they'll fill your pinner with
guineas. You'll kiss me for a pinnerfull of guineas, won't you?"

"No, sir," said she very decidedly.

"Then kiss me, Nance, because, though we shall never meet again, we've
helped one another when we did meet."

She put her foot on mine, and I lifted her up in my arms and kissed her
red young lips and tear-stained cheeks.

"Good-bye, Nance!"

"Good-bye, sir. God bless you!"

At a bend in the road I turned to look at her again. She was standing
there, looking after me, and waved her bonnet in farewell. I took off my
hat and waved back, and then she was gone from sight.

"She's a good girl is Nance," said I aloud, "and you, curse you, are the
cause of all my troubles"--this to my new hat. My foppery had cost me
dear. What would the Prince say to my failure? What would Margaret say?
There would once more be questionings in her eyes, and the shadow of doubt
on her face.

"Curse you!" I said again to the hat, and then, with a swift, strong
sweep of my arm, sent it spinning into a brook.

Sultan showed his points. He did ten miles in fifty minutes by my watch,
accurate timing and counting from one milestone to another.

At last the broad Trent came in sight and I rattled over Swarkston
bridge, only to be pulled up on the other side by a strong post of
Highlanders. My luck still held, however, for Donald was amongst them,
and, on his explaining who I was, the chief in command let me pass.

Donald trotted by my side for half a mile to give me all the news. The
Prince had lain all night at Derby in the Earl of Exeter's house. There
had been many rumours and wranglings among the chiefs at night, a council
of war was fixed for this morning, and no one knew what it was all about.
There had been great doings overnight in the town, and he, Donald, had
stood guard at the Prince's lodging.

"She dinged 'em a', as I tell't ye she would," he said. "Losh, man, it
was a grand sight to see her an' the bonny Maclachlan gliding ower ta
flure in ta dancin'. They were like twa gowden eagles gliding in the air
ower a ben wi' ta sun shinin' on it. Losh, man, I tell it ye, they're a
bonny, bonny pair. Got pless 'em."

"Good-bye, Donald! I'll push on. Damn Swift Nicks!" I cried, and gave
Sultan such a dig in the flanks that he shot ahead like an arrow from a
bow. I was sorry immediately, but it was more than I could stand.



CHAPTER XX

THE COUNCIL AT DERBY


It was a relief to get into the chock-full streets of the town, where
thinking was impossible and good round cursing indispensable. Even with
its aid in clearing a course for him, Sultan tumbled over a brace of
Highlanders, two of a swarm of Maclachlans and Macdonalds who were
disputing possession of a cutler's shop on the corner of Bag Street. After
their native fashion, they immediately suspended their quarrel to unite
against a common foe, but on a Maclachlan recognizing me as a friend, went
at one another again with infinite zest, and I saw them hard at it as I
turned into the market-square.

Our meagre collection of cannon had been packed here with their
appendancies, and I was threading my way through them to the far side of
the square, where stands Exeter House, and was within a flick of a pebble
of it, when the Colonel ran out, bareheaded and eager, and came up to me.

"You young dog! What's happened?" said he.

"I've lost my hat, sir," I replied.

"Lost your--Damme! I'll have you court-martialled yet before I've done
with you. Off you come! Hello, my precious. Hitch him to the tail of yon
wagon and come along. The Prince saw you from the window. Steady, my
beauty! Come along, Noll! Fancy a town the size of this and not a damned
pinch of Strasburg in it!"

I hurried after him through the hall and up the stairs. Something big was
in hand beyond a doubt, for hall and stairs were thronged with groups of
Highland leaders, and in one set, somewhat apart, I saw Murray and
Ogilvie. The Colonel took no notice of the curious looks that were cast
upon us, particularly me, but, after a word with the chief on duty,
ushered me unceremoniously into the presence.

Charles was taking short turns up and down near the hearth, but stopped
as I bowed before him.

"You've failed me!" he said bitterly.

"I have carried out your Royal Highness's commands exactly, though, to my
deep regret, not punctually, but every hour I am late has been spent under
arrest. In riding on your business, sir, I have ridden up to the foot of
the gallows."

I spoke quietly but crisply, for I would not be girded at unjustly, no,
not by a prince. He took my meaning, and answered generously, "As I knew
you would, Master Wheatman, if need were."

The noble panelled room in which we were was set out with a long table
and many chairs. At the head of the table a mean-looking man was busily
writing. At the window two other men stood in earnest conversation, and
these, as I learned later, were the Irishmen, Sir Thomas Sheridan and
Colonel O'Sullivan.

"Leave your dispatch, Mr. Secretary, and come hither. And you, too,
gentlemen!" said Charles.

So, with the Prince sitting near the fire and the four leaders ranged
behind him, I stood and told my tale, cutting out all that was meaningless
from their point of view. As I had expected, there was no mistaking its
effect on him. I had indeed, come back empty-handed. Yet he pulled himself
together and said lightly, "Well, gentlemen, if the men of the Midlands
are not for me, they are certainly not against me."

"That is a strong point in your favour, sir," said O'Sullivan.

"When I've thrashed the Duke and got into London," said Charles, buoyed
up at once by any straw of comfort, "they'll be round me like wasps round
a honey-pot. I wasn't clear last night, but Master Wheatman has decided
me. I ride into London in Highland dress."

"I applaud the decision of Your Royal Highness," said the foxy secretary.
"It is a merited compliment to your brave clansmen." He afterwards ratted
and so helped to hang some of the best of them.

"Now for your dispatch to the Marquis," said Charles, going towards the
secretary's papers. "There's time to look at it before Murray and his
supports arrive." O'Sullivan walked softly to one of the windows
overlooking the square, and we followed him.

"Faith, Colonel," said he. "The game's up if we go on."

"It is," said the Colonel, tapping at his box. "Damn this rappee, Oliver.
I'd as lief sniff at sawdust."

"But if the Prince wants to go on, I back him up," added O'Sullivan.

"So do I," said Sir Thomas.

"So do I," echoed the Colonel, "but, damme, I shall tell him the precise
truth about the military aspect of the situation. One's my duty as a
soldier just as much as the other. I haven't the least objection to dying,
but be damned if I want my reputation to die with me. The most you can say
of rappee, Oliver, is that it's better than nothing."

"That's just what I've been thinking, sir," said I, with equal gravity,
"about my old hat."

"You're keeping that story for Margaret, you young dog, but she's bound
to tell me. I was out of bed till two o'clock this morning, listening to
her clatter about getting married quick, and walls of Troy, and ham and
eggs. She nearly prated the top of my head off, and did not kiss me
good-night till I'd told her for the seventeenth time that there was no
need to worry about you. Seventeen times"--a vigorous sniff and a merry
twinkle--"I counted 'em."

It was obvious nonsense, but it pained me.

"It was very kind of her, sir," I said at last.

"Humph!" said he, and turned to talk with the Irishmen. I kept a sharp
look out on the square below, hoping for a glimpse of Margaret, paying no
heed to the earnest conversation buzzing in my ear. Princes and dominions,
and marches and battles, were nothing to me as I stood there fighting for
mastery over myself.

I was pulled back from these slippery tracks of thought by the Colonel,
who gripped my arm and whispered, "Here they come, Oliver."

I looked to the door and saw the chiefs filing into the room, led by
Murray, with the greater ones immediately behind him and the others in due
degree, till the room was fairly crowded. Charles continued his colloguing
with Mr. Secretary while they disposed themselves according to their rank
in council, though the Duke of Perth was pleased to take his stand on the
hearth among some of the smaller sort. Sir Thomas Sheridan and Colonel
O'Sullivan left us and seated themselves nearer the Prince, and when they
had done so, and while there was still some noisy settling down to be
done, I whispered to the Colonel, "Oughtn't I to go out now, sir?"

"I'm for going on to London," said he, grinning at me with his eyes,
though he kept the face of a wooden image. "And first thing we do, Oliver,
we'll lead a desperate attack, you and I, on a tobacco-man's. Damme!
There's wagon-loads of Strasburg in London!"

"Suppose I start off now, sir, and mark down one or two of the primest."

"Suppose you stay where you are, lad," he replied. "You're here by
rights: first, because the Prince asked ye here and has not dismissed you,
and you never leave the presence of royalty till royalty kicks you out;
secondly"--pausing to take a pinch of rappee that would have lifted the
roof of my head off--"because you can't have less sense than some of these
chatterers. Council of war! Mob of parliament-men!"

Thus it came about that, thanks to Swift Nicks, I was present at the
great council which was to decide the fate of the Stuarts. I pushed behind
the Colonel, so that I could now and again steal a peep for Margaret. Just
at the last minute, with Charles lifting his eyes up to begin, the door
opened again to admit Maclachlan, red with the haste he had been making.
It made me grit my teeth to see him, for I knew why he was so hot. He had
been fluttering around Margaret, and so had lost count of time. Then I
stopped my gritting and started grinning. Much Margaret would think of a
man who neglected his soldiering to dangle at her apron-strings!

His Royal Highness, after his usual habit, opened the Council by stating
his own opinion.

"I have called you together, gentlemen," he said, "to consider our next
step. The question is: Shall we march west, cut the Duke's forces in two,
and so beat him, or, shall we take advantage of the fact that we are
nearer London than he is, press on, and take possession of the Capital? I
am strongly for the second plan."

"Damme, sir! Well put!" said the Colonel under his breath. And indeed it
was so well put that the chiefs looked rather hopelessly at one another,
for this was by no means the alternative that they had in mind. It was to
them, as soon appeared, no choice between south and west that they had
come to discuss, but the much more important choice between south and
north. For a minute or two there was a muttering of Gaelic, which the
Prince did not understand, at any rate, so far as the words were
concerned. Then Lord George Murray rose, bowed profoundly to the Prince,
and began the case for the chiefs.

"The Duke of Cumberland," he said, "was that night at Stafford with an
army of ten thousand foot and two thousand horse. Mr. Wade was coming by
hard marches down the east road and could easily get between His Royal
Highness's army and Scotland. They had authentic news that an army was
being encamped on the north of London. If, then, they marched to London
they would have two armies in their rear and one in front of them, and,
high as he rated the valour and prowess of the army he had the honour,
under His Royal Highness, of commanding, it was vain to suppose that they
could defeat three armies each at least twice as numerous as they. None of
the advantages on which they had relied when they agreed to enter England
had been realized. They had received no accession of strength worth
considering from the English Jacobites; the population were not friendly
but at all times surly and neutral, and on all possible occasions openly
hostile; the promised French invasion had not even been attempted.
Scotland they had won for His Majesty and could and should keep it for
him. To do this required them to return with all speed and with
undiminished forces. On all these grounds he, and those for whom he spoke,
implored His Royal Highness to return thither and consolidate his forces
for a fresh attempt under more favourable conditions."

His lordship had spoken calmly and with no outward sign of feeling except
that, as he got toward the end of his speech and his drift became open and
manifest, his voice gained more and more emphasis as he saw the
undisguised impatience and growing anger of Charles. The Prince paid no
courteous attention to the arguments of his chief military adviser, but
shot eager glances round the ring of faces, and particularly at His Grace
of Perth, who was visibly flattered by this mute appeal. The Colonel, who
noted all this by-play, was nettled by the Prince's indifference to
military authority, and whispered, "Well done, Geordie Murray! Right as a
trivet!"

The speech done, the Prince struck his clenched fist on the table and
said, "I am for marching on London."

It was plain, however, that the chiefs were against him almost to a man.
Murray was clearly in the right, and his military skill and experience
gave him great authority. As yet there was no open murmuring against the
Prince; nothing but manifest determination not to be won over by his
cajoleries or threats.

"Why should we not go on?" demanded the Prince passionately. "Here we
are, masters of the heart of England. A quick, bold stroke, and London is
ours. The game is in our hands."

"Game?" cried a rugged, headstrong chief, Macdonald of Glencoe. "The
game's up, sir, thanks to these beer-swilling English friends of your
house, who are Jacobites only round a cosy fire with mugs in their hands."

"They are only awaiting an earnest of victory," said Charles.

"Waiting for us to do the work," said Glencoe bitterly, "and then blithe
they'll be to hansel the profits. We can gang back to Scotland as quick as
we like when we've ance got London for 'em!"

There was a growl of assent from the chiefs, but silence fell again when
the venerable Tullibardine, too racked with gout to stand, took up the
word.

He spoke as one who had grown old and weary and poor in the service of
the exiled House. The conditions of success, he said, had always been the
same: the Highland adherents of His Majesty could never hope to be more
than the centre around which the real sources of strength, English support
and French aid, might gather; and these had failed now as they had failed
in '15. "I dare not," he concluded, "lift my voice to urge men to take
risks which I am too feeble to share."

Charles put up a stout fight, but it was no use. Chief after chief had
his say, and then said it again and again. Maclachlan shifted from his
place near the door to the corner of the hearth and, after whispering a
while with the Duke of Perth, confusedly gave his opinion in favour of
going back.

He was no sort of a speaker, being ill at ease, and plainly occupied in
rummaging about in his mind. Having wits, however, he stumbled on a new
line of argument.

"Then, sir," he said, "there is the great port of Glasgow to be taken in.
There's more ready wealth there than in any other town in Scotland, and
its moneys, public and peculiar, will give you the means of raising a
great army for the spring."

"Any port in a storm," said the Prince, scowling at him.

Being a Stuart, Charles did not realize that every one of these chiefs
was a king-in-little, accustomed to unfettered independence of action.
There were curious contrasts in him, for he was as blundering and
incapable in dealing with an assembly as he was sure and brilliant in
dealing with a man by himself.

Feeling began to run high. One of the chiefs jerked himself on to his
feet and harangued the Prince like a master rating an apprentice. He was
almost as long and thin as one of Jane's line-props, and had high, jutting
cheek-bones and jaws that snapped on the ends of his sentences like a
rat-trap.

"I'm for gaein' back while the road's open behint us," he said. "If we
dinna, and I get back at a', which is dootfu', I shall gae back wi' barely
a dozen loons to my tail, an' the Cawmbells, be damned to every man o' the
name, will ride on my back for the rest of my days."

"Ye're in the right of it, Strowan," said my Lord Ogilvie. "There's too
few of us for this work, but a little peat will boil a little pot. Let us
gang back and raddle the Glasgow bodies. Ye hae my advice, sir!"

Here the Prince, to my mind, made a fatal mistake. He had begun by trying
to carry matters merely by the weight of his royal authority. This was
ever his plan in council, and as long as things went well it served, since
the chiefs, looking forward as they then did to ultimate triumph, were not
willing to risk his displeasure by standing out against him. Now that they
were in a tight corner this cock would fight no longer, and he made
matters worse by appealing to the Irishman, O'Sullivan, for his opinion.
He briefly gave it in favour of going on.

One tale will hold till another's told. O'Sullivan had a great reputation
as a master of the irregular mode of fighting, which must be adopted by an
army composed, like ours, of untrained men not equipped according to the
rules and requirements of soldiership. But my Lord George Murray was ready
for him.

"Great as Colonel O'Sullivan's reputation is, sir," he said sweetly, "we
have with us in Colonel Waynflete another soldier of great distinction.
His views would be welcome, sir."

"Yes, indeed," said the Prince eagerly.

"For myself, sir," said the Colonel, snuff-box open in hand, for he had
been surprised with the rappee between his fingers, "I am ready to go on.
I came to serve your Royal Highness, and I serve my commander as he
chooses, not as I would choose myself. But when you ask me as to the
military result of going on, I tell you frankly, as becomes a soldier of
experience asked in Council to deliver his opinion, that it is idle to
expect this present force to get to London. As you get nearer London, sir,
the country becomes of a kind which your army could not successfully
operate in. It would be confined to roads lined with hedges and passing
through many defendable towns and villages. Your short, powerful charges
would be out of the question. The English as a whole fight well, no men
better; we can't rationally expect all of them to run off at a Highland
yell, and with the country in their favour and London behind them, a
source of constant fresh supplies to them, we should be wiped out in
detail. Your Royal Highness wishes to go on, and therefore I am willing to
go on, but your Royal Highness cannot capture London with the force at
your disposal."

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