CHAPTER XIII.

Nor can any men's malice be gratified further by my letters, than to see my constancy to my wife, the laws, and religion. Bees will gather honey where spiders suck poison.--_Eikon Basiliké._

"Dearest Wife,

"You will have heard from other hands the ill success of our expedition. My Winifred, who knows what have been my fears from the beginning of this undertaking, also knows that my mind has been prepared for the result, and will therefore be aware that among all his sorrows her husband has not had to endure those of disappointed hope. Let her then be assured that his heart, though grieved, is unsubdued; and that his soul is fully made up to meet with constancy whatever may occur to himself.

"As my dear wife may well believe, I have suffered much. I have seen counsels which appeared to me the most imprudent, and which the event has proved to be such, invariably prevail. I have seen every opportunity of success neglected. I have seen, without the power of preventing it, rashness, where prudence should have ruled; deliberation, where boldness and decision would have been true discretion.

"But, as my Winifred knows, it was not with the expectation of ultimate success that I devoted myself to the cause of my king. I obeyed what I believed to be the call of duty, but I may have been mistaken. When I have seen the blood of my countrymen stain their native soil, then indeed I have felt doubts, agonizing doubts, as to the correctness of my judgment. I have looked on death before; I have served in Germany; I have been an eye-witness of assassinations in Italy; I have seen criminals pay the forfeit of their lives; but, in the solitude of a prison, it is the image of the first victim of civil strife that haunts my imagination,--that moment, when I saw one of our own Scots fell with his battle-axe a fellow Scot; when I heard one foeman utter a threat, the other a cry for mercy, in the selfsame tongue! I still see the dying glance of that blue-eyed youth, the life-blood staining his fair crisped curls: in the heat of battle the impression was momentary; but now, in darkness and in silence, that image rises up between me and sleep!

"It is only to my beloved wife, who has so long read every feeling of this wayward heart, that I dare confess such weakness. To my companions in arms and in misfortune such sentiments would appear the sickly phantasies of a distempered mind: even to her, I will dwell on them no longer.

"My Winifred will have learned with pride for the land of her husband, that the Scots were the last to yield at the fatal affair of Preston: indeed, all our party fought with unequalled bravery; each several street was obstinately defended. General Willis's troops set fire to the houses betwixt themselves and the barricades; but we still fought all night by the light of the conflagration, and we had the advantage in every several attack. Yet what could be done by a small body of men, cut off from all assistance, and cooped up in a burning town!

"The English were for submission, while our brave men were for rushing on death, or regaining liberty by one desperate sally. The English accomplished a capitulation; but Forster's life was near becoming the sacrifice! Many of our Scots still loudly accuse him of treachery; and Murray levelled a pistol at his head when he heard what was the mission on which Oxburgh had been sent to the English general. Had not a friendly hand struck the weapon upwards, Forster must then have fallen! But I sincerely believe that he has acted with loyalty and sincerity throughout. When the cause is hopeless, is a commander justified in wasting the blood of those under his command? Each of us, individually, may prefer death to submission; but has a general a right to sport with the lives of others?

"Should my Winifred have an opportunity of seeing our king,--who, though his coming is now too late, must, I imagine, be by this time in Scotland,--it would be but justice towards a man, who, though unfortunate and perhaps ill-judged, is, I believe, a faithful servant of King James's, to let his majesty know that such is my impression.

"We have not yet been told our ultimate destination; but we conclude we shall be conveyed to London, there,--let not my dear wife be startled, for she must be aware it is the inevitable consequence of defeat--there to take our trial. Let her rather rejoice that it is in an honourable, though perhaps a mistaken cause, that her husband will appear before the tribunal of his country; and that among his fellow-prisoners he may count the noble Earl of Derwentwater, the good Viscount Kenmure, and many more of unsullied honour.

"When I make use of the word 'prisoners,' let her not picture to herself handcuffs and irons, a dark and damp dungeon: we are poorly lodged, it is true, but we are not deprived of necessary comforts. If I could see my Winifred----! But that is now impossible.

"She may rely upon my summoning her when there is a hope of her being allowed to cheer me with her presence. I should think myself unworthy of her true and devoted affection, if I did not place on it the implicit reliance which it deserves. Adieu, my beloved! I know that, next to Heaven, I am ever in your thoughts; neither do you need to be assured that you are loved with equal truth and fervour. Professions are needless between those whose souls are united as ours have ever been! And yet there is a satisfaction in tracing with my own hand the words which I trust will reach my Winifred's eyes,--that whenever, however, death may meet me, my last prayer shall be for her, my last thought on her, and that I firmly believe the affection which fills my soul must survive death itself; that I am, and ever have been, her true and faithful husband,

"Nithsdale.

"P.S. I hope I have engaged a countryman of these parts to convey this safely to your hands, under the promise of a handsome reward upon the safe delivery of the letter."

Full many a time did Lady Nithsdale read over the assurance of that affection which she never doubted. She laid the precious document next her heart; and then she summoned once more the English peasant, who she thought had probably beheld her lord with his own eyes.

He was ushered into her presence; and never did two human beings form, in their outward appearance, a more striking contrast, than the pale, slender, high-born countess, whose anxious countenance bore the traces of deep feeling, whose transparent complexion varied with every word she uttered, whose shrinking form seemed as if every breath of wind might blow it away, while the light which shone from her eye spoke a soul capable of withstanding the storms of adverse fortune; and Dickon, who with stout and sturdy limbs, and a ruddy countenance, beaming with health and good cheer, mixed with a sort of rustic, merry cunning, stood unawed before her.

"You saw my lord your own self, did you not, my good friend?" inquired Lady Nithsdale, with a degree of timidity and anxiety in her tone.

"An' it please your ladyship," answered Dickon, with a scrape of the foot and a pull of the hair, "I saw a many of the rebels, great and small, one day, when they were changing their quarters."

"But it was my lord himself, the Earl of Nithsdale, who entrusted you with the packet you brought even now?"

"Yes, I take it, it was; for the packet was directed to the Countess of Nithsdale, and the gentleman told me to take it to his wife, and to be sure and give it into her own hands, without fail, myself; and he said, if I did, I should be sure to get a handsome reward; that nothing would be too good for me, and such like, he said. He was a civil-spoken gentleman, and very free of his promises."

"You have been rewarded for your pains, I hope. I gave orders to my waiting-woman to see to your wishes in every respect."

"Oh! she is a smart lass, that, and she behaved very civil to me, and I'm no ways dissatisfied. Only perhaps a trifle from your ladyship's own fair hand; she is but a waiting-woman after all," added Dickon, not forgetting the eleventh commandment, and making another scrape, which he meant should savour of gallantry.

Lady Nithsdale slipped some additional gold into his hand. "And did my lord look well?" she inquired.

"Yes, very well, my lady, as far as I know. Just as well as the other lords he was along with; only a trifle paler. He did not look, my lady, as if he had visited his own buttery-hatch quite so lately as I have."

"Alas! was he very pale? Tell me, in pity tell me all the truth."

"Nay, madam! don't put yourself in such a fluster. He looked pale, just like all the rest of them."

Lady Nithsdale turned away for a moment. She could scarcely endure to commune with one who saw in her noble husband but a man, like other men: and yet this peasant had seen him, he had heard his voice; from him alone could she hope to learn any particulars. Dickon, who was not wanting in natural shrewdness, perceived that his answers did not give entire satisfaction; and when Lady Nithsdale again turning towards him inquired whether her lord moved with a firm step, or whether his health did not appear to have suffered from long confinement, he answered,

"Oh, bless your heart, my lady, he walked as strong, and looked lusty and hearty; quite different from the other lords! Oh! he's a fine gentleman sure enough, and looked more like a prince than anything else."

"He has a noble carriage, in good sooth," rejoined Lady Nithsdale; "and sorrow has not yet subdued his lofty bearing?"

"Lord save you, my lady! he was quite of a different sort from the rest of them. They seemed like rabble by the side of him: anybody might have known him among a thousand!"

"They might, indeed. And when he spoke did his voice sound full and mellow as ever?"

"Why, he spoke somewhat low, for he did not wish everybody to hear; but methought it was a marvellous good voice, quite different from the other rebels."

Lady Nithsdale hung upon his words with delight, and forgot that at first she had thought him incapable of estimating her lord's superiority over his fellows.

"And can you tell me how my lord was lodged, and how he is attended?"

"Why, as I have heard say, very well lodged; not so handsomely as he would be here in such a castle as this, but right well lodged as times go; and they say that the rebels they live like fighting-cocks, and there is revelry of all kinds going on among them. But that's among the young lords," added Dickon, who saw he had not now touched the right string; "not my Lord Derwentwater and my Lord Nithsdale, they are quite of another sort; but some of the young gallants, and young Bottair of Athol--Oh! he's a comely young fellow that!--and they do say that pretty Kate Musgrave----"

The countess began to think she had conversed long enough with the trusty messenger, especially after his supper at the buttery-hatch; and repeating her thanks in the manner most satisfactory to the worthy Dickon, she dismissed him to seek the repose he must need after his journey.

The Chevalier's arrival, which Lord Nithsdale in his letter had considered almost certain, had not yet taken place: and although the Earl of Mar was resolved, by keeping possession of Perth, to retain at least one town where his master might be sure of an honourable and safe reception, the defection of the whole clan of Fraser, the advance of the Earl of Sutherland, the reinforcements which strengthened the Duke of Argyle's army from the regular troops, whose presence was no longer required in England, rendered each day the situation of the Jacobite general more desperate.

Still, having formally invited the Chevalier to put himself at the head of the insurrectionary army, Mar felt himself under the necessity of keeping his remaining troops together, to protect the person of the prince when he should effect his landing. In this dilemma, he proposed a military oath in the name of King James the Eighth; but the attempt to bind together those who were only waiting for an excuse to disperse proved as unavailing as his previous proposal of an association. All the principal chiefs and leaders complained that they had been deluded by promises which had never been fulfilled. They insisted--and there was much reason in their arguments--that they had no more grounds for now believing the king was on the point of arriving, than that the long promised arms, ammunition, and treasure, should be sent from France; and from this period a party was established in the very army of the Earl of Mar which declared for opening a negotiation with the Duke of Argyle.